MÜNCHNER BEITRÄGE ZUR JÜDISCHEN GESCHICHTE UND …

MÜNCHNER BEITRÄGEZUR JÜDISCHENGESCHICHTE UNDKULTUR

The Munich Journal of Jewish Historyand Culture

Lehrstuhl für Jüdische Geschichteund Kultur an derLudwig-Maximilians-Universität München

ISRAEL AND EUROPE

Contributions by Colin Shindler,Azriel Bermant, Samuel Ghiles-Meilhac,Rory Miller, Oren Osterer,Jakub Tyszkiewicz and Noam Zadoff

Jg. 7 / Heft 1·2013

Dieses Heft wurde gefördert von der Israelitischen KultusgemeindeMünchen und Oberbayern.

Published by the Lehrstuhl für Jüdische Geschichte und Kultur,Michael Brenner.Editorial Board: Martin Baumeister, Rome – Menahem Ben-Sasson,Jerusalem – Richard I. Cohen, Jerusalem – John M. Efron, Berkeley –Jens Malte Fischer, München – Benny Morris, Beer Sheva – Hans-Georgvon Mutius, München – Ada Rapoport-Albert, London –Aron Rodrigue, Stanford – David B. Ruderman, Philadelphia –Martin Schulze Wessel, München – Avinoam Shalem, München –Wolfram Siemann, München – Norman Stillman, Oklahoma –Yfaat Weiss, Jerusalem – Stephen J. Whitfield, Brandeis.Editorial Committee: Heike Koch, Andrea Sinn, Ernst-Peter Wiecken-berg, Mirjam Zadoff, Noam Zadoff.Translations: David ReesAddress: Abteilung für Jüdische Geschichte und Kultur an der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Historisches Seminar, Geschwis-ter-Scholl-Platz 1, 80539 München.E-mail: [email protected] journal is published bi-annually.Costs: 7.50 Euro per issue, 14 € per annual subscription.

Copyright back cover Illustration:Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung,B 145 Bild-00009354. Foto Benno Wundshammer/14. März 1960.

# Abteilung für Jüdische Geschichte und Kultur an der Ludwig-Maxi-milians-Universität München

Producing and design: mazzetti&mazzetti GmbH, MünchenPrinting and binding: AZ Druck und Datentechnik GmbH, KemptenCoverdesign: Peter Mazzetti

ISSN 1864–385X

TABLE OF CONTENT

Michael Brenner Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 5Noam Zadoff Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 6

ISRAEL AND EUROPEColin Shindler Israel Studies in Europe. . . . . . . . . . . Page 10

Rory Miller The Politics of Trade, Science andTechnology: The Case of Israel andthe European Union . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 15

Samuel Ghiles-Meilhac European Jews Engaged inthe Israeli-Arab Peace Process: A New Form ofJewish Internationalism? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 26

Azriel Bermant Britain& Policy towards Israelunder Margaret Thatcher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 35

Oren Osterer Anatomy of a Non-Relationship:Israel and the German Democratic Republic . . . . . . . Page 46

Jakub Tyszkiewicz The View of Israel inPost-Communist Poland (1989–2012) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 55

Tamara Or Israel and Europe: Mapping the Past,Shaping the Future. A Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 62

FROM THE ARCHIVESNoam Zadoff “40 Gills of Scotch Whiskey":A Satirical Birthday Speech fromMandatory Palestine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 68

STUDENT TRIPS TO ISRAELJulia Treindl Immigration and Emigration. . . . . . . . Page 72

Veronika Nickel, Hannes Pichler,Esther Pütz, and Josef Prackwieser Jerusalem andthe Holy Land: Jews and Christians in theMiddle Ages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 75

NEWSLETTERFaculty Notes / Alumni Today . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 78Recent Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 80Friends of Institute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 88

The Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 90

Overview of past Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 95

Michael Brenner

Preface

The Munich Journal of Jewish History and Culture has beenpublished biannually since 2007. This first English edition isdesigned to address a broader audience beyond the German-speaking world. It contains some of the lectures presented dur-ing the first Congress of the European Association of Israel Stu-dies, which took place in September of 2012 at Ludwig-Maxi-milians-Universität (LMU) in Munich.

The Institute of Jewish History and Culture at the Univer-sity of Munich was founded in 1997. It was unique in that itwas the first time Jewish history was included as part of a his-tory department in any German university. The Institute hasexpanded significantly in the last fifteen years, adding posi-tions of Hebrew and Yiddish language, medieval Jewish his-tory, and the history of Jews in Muslim countries.

The study of modern Israel has always been an integral partof the Institute. Its faculty brings students to Israel on regularvisits. In recent years, the themes of student trips have beenimmigration, religious and ethnic minorities, and the BritishMandate. The Friends of the Institute raise and donate moneyto provide annual scholarships for intensive language studyand immersion programs in Israel. The Institute hosts visitingprofessors from Israeli universities. On the faculty we areproud to have Dr. Noam Zadoff, a specialist in Israel Studieswho currently holds the Ben Gurion Guest Chair of Israel Stu-dies at the University of Heidelberg and will return to Munichthis fall. I am grateful for his co-editing this issue of the Mu-nich Journal.

The recently established Israel Institute has announced thatLMU will be among the first universities to receive fundingfor a visiting professorship in Israel Studies. In the summer of2014, Anita Shapira, Professor emerita at Tel Aviv Universityand author of the widely acclaimed book Israel: A History,will teach in Munich. We hope that this will be the first steptowards establishing a permanent professorship in Israel Stu-dies at LMU.

Preface ■ 5

HEFT 1·2013MÜNCHNER BEITRÄGEZUR JÜDISCHENGESCHICHTE UND KULTUR

Noam Zadoff

Introduction

The first annual meeting of the European Association of IsraelStudies (EAIS) took place at the history department of the Lud-wig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) in Munich from 10–12September 2012. More than one hundred scholars from sixteencountries traveled to the Bavarian capital to discuss topics re-lated to past and present relations between Israel and Europe.Over the course of two days and over thirty sessions, they in-teracted in a collegial and productive atmosphere of academicexchange. The EAIS meeting in Munich was a precedent inmany respects: it was the first international conference of theEAIS; it was the largest conference ever hosted at the historydepartment of LMU; and it was probably the largest academicconference dedicated to Israel ever held in Germany.

The EAIS was inaugurated in London in the fall of 2011. Itseeks to provide an academic framework for scholars at Eur-opean universities who teach and research topics related to Is-rael and Zionism. The EAIS is politically neutral. Its aim is tocreate a network of scholars and to establish and support IsraelStudies as an academic field in Europe. The annual meetings ofthe EAIS serve as a platform for exchange and collaboration be-tween scholars and students of Israel Studies. In this respect,the interest in the Munich conference and the strong atten-dance suggest a promising future for the EAIS.

The LMU history department – the first history departmentto have fully integrated the study of Jewish history and cul-ture – proved the perfect venue for the meeting. To a great ex-tent, this was due to the help of the department& executive di-rector, Dr. Wolfgang Piereth, without whom the organizationof the first EAIS meeting would have been impossible.

in this special issue of The Munich Journal of Jewish Historyand Culture were presented at the EAIS conference and reflectthe intellectually stimulating atmosphere of the event.

Noam Zadoff6 ■


Opening panel in the Bavarian Academy of Sciences with Professor Michael Brenner, Ambassador Avi Primor,Professor Raffaele del Sarto, Professor Munter S. Dajani and former speaker of the German Parliament,Professor Rita Süssmuth.

Israel and Europe:Mapping the Past, Shaping the Future

First Annual Conference of the EAIS,10–12 September 2012,

LMU Munich

Amnon Aranp(London), AlainDieckhoff (Paris),Rory Miller(London)

t Gabor Balaz (Szeged), Colin Shindler

q Moshe Zimmermann (Jerusalem),Michael Wolffsohn (Munich)

Elie Rekhess (Chicago), pAmbassador Shimon Stein

Alan Dieckhoff (Paris) u

Azriel Bermant (London),Orna Almo (London),Samuel Ghiles-Meilhac (Paris),Andrea Sinn (Munich) q

Carol Zemel (Toronto) andIlan Troen (Brandeis) ▼

p Concluding session

t Noam Zadoff (Munich), Katharina Hey (Munich)

t Ruth Bevan (New York),Aviva Halamish (Haifa),Michael Brenner (Munich),Yuval Moshkovitz (London)

Colin Shindler

Israel Studies in Europe

Israel Studies is not an innovation at institutions of higher edu-cation in Europe. Modern Hebrew and the study of the HolyLand reach back certainly into the nineteenth century. At myown college, the School of Oriental and African Studies at theUniversity of London, such academic interest began with theBritish Foreign Office’s desire in 1916 to develop a cadre of ex-perts which would help them understand and indeed controlthe Middle East. A year later Arthur Balfour wrote to LordRothschild whereby the British promised “a national home forthe Jewish people.”

The smooth governance of the British Empire requiredtrained administrators who understood the language, history,and culture of the governed. This was true of many other coun-tries as well where it was felt in the depths of their collectivesoul that imperialism was beneficial for all. From the BelgianCongo to Italian Libya, there was a need for experts to assist inthe making of policy and in the training of bureaucrats. Theneed for speakers of modern Hebrew was no different. Thus, inone sense, the advent of the Balfour Declaration, the BritishMandate for Palestine, and the development of the Yishuvbrought the precursor of Israel Studies to Western Europe.

Indeed the revival of Hebrew as a spoken and written lan-guage in the nineteenth century in Eastern Europe led to thedevelopment of a cultural nationalism which mirrored theemergence of the Jews as an ethnic group. After 1917, the Brit-ish began to understand that the Jews were more than a mar-ginalized religious group, more than the People of the Book.This was something new, connected with but distant from theteaching of Hebrew in departments of theology.

From the 1920s onwards, the espousal of Hebrew was laterreflected in the development of courses on Hebrew literatureand culture. Writers as Saul Tchernichowsky, Micha YosefBerdyczewski, and Yosef Hayim Brenner, as well as poets suchas Hayim Nahman Bialik and Uri Zvi Greenberg, became theobjects of study in European institutions.

The evolution of the Jews in Eastern Europe into a nationalgroup under the influence of both the French Revolution and

Colin Shindler10 ■


the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment)gave rise to a plethora of Jewish identities,ranging from the acculturated and assimi-lated, on one side, to the ultra-orthodox,on the other, who painstakingly rebuiltthe ghetto walls. Indeed, with the emer-gence of the Wissenschaft des Judentumsin the early nineteenth century, “Jewish-ness” came to mean more than Judaism.Instead, it could mean all aspects of themillennia of Jewish civilization, including history, culture, lit-erature, and language, as well as religion itself. This in turn ledto evaluating the Jewish question. These developments in es-sence gave birth to modern Jewish studies – as opposed to Judaicstudies in an academic context. With the emergence of the mod-ern Zionist movement under Herzl’s aegis, the precursors of Is-rael Studies also began to be taught as a subset of Jewish Studies.

Despite this, Israel Studies is perceived as a comparativelynew discipline in Europe. Yet it has been taught under aplethora of labels – Jewish Studies, Middle East Studies, Medi-terranean Studies etc. Moreover, it has been taught in universi-ties and institutions of higher education for decades, from Iber-ia to Siberia. Indeed many different aspects of Israel are taughtat the universities of Tomsk, Omsk, Novosibirsk, Tyumen,Kemerovo and Altai in Siberia.

The tortuous and seemingly intractable Israel-Palestine con-flict, of course, attracts a wide student audience seeking to findsome rational entry into understanding the quagmire. In onesense, students desire to go beyond the slogans and sound biteswhich permeate and surround the Israel-Palestine conflict.There is the perception that the conflict is not simple and clearcut, but exceedingly complex. In another sense, interest in thestudy of Israel is also a reaction to the popularity of postcolonialtheory with its Foucaultian coloring and the teachings of lumin-aries such as Edward Said and Noam Chomsky. Outside theclassroom, the demonization of Zionism and the satanizationof Israel in the public arena, have reached surrealistic levels.Students in an academic environment sense this and wish tomake up their own minds on such controversial and vexed sub-jects, not in the sense of advocacy, but in the sense that there isanother narrative which needs to be explored intellectually.

At some institutions in the UK, undergraduate students canobtain a combined degree of which Hebrew and Israel Studies

Colin Shindler atthe opening of the EAISconference in Munich,Bayerische Akademie,10 September 2012

Israel Studies in Europe ■ 11


are merely one component. As part of such four-year programs,many students choose to spend their third year at the HebrewUniversity of Jerusalem. Master& programs in Israel Studiesare also offered whereby students can select courses on lan-guage, religion, politics, history, literature, and culture, andwrite a thesis on a subject for which they have a passion. TheIsrael-Palestine conflict naturally attracts doctoral students.Recent research topics have included the Wall/Fence/Barrier;the role of the Swedes as facilitators in negotiations betweenthe two sides; the utilization of Israeli law by Israeli Palesti-nians to secure their rights, and the attitude of British trade un-ions towards Israel.

Attitudes towards the Middle East tend to differ clearly be-tween Western Europe and Eastern Europe. In Western Europethere is the legacy of colonialism. The framework of referenceof the post-1945 intelligentsia was the anticolonial struggle inVietnam, South Africa, Rhodesia, and a host of other places. Itinfluenced myriad causes, from America’s Black Panthers to,more recently, Hugo Chávez’s Bolivarian revolution in Vene-zuela. This allowed the adherents of these movements to identi-fy much more closely with the Palestinian cause in the 1960s,align it within a template understanding of the anticolonialstruggle.

Eastern Europe has neither this burden of colonialism nor ahistory of subjugating the developing world. Russia confined itsimperialism to its immediate neighbors. If attitudes in EasternEurope and Russia towards Israel have been defined by the past,it is a past defined by discrimination and extermination of Jews.

Israel Studies as a stand-alone subject is therefore popular inboth halves of Europe, but for different reasons.

In Germany, the inheritance of the memory of the atrocitiesof the twentieth century is often translated into sympathy.This transcends the ideological division of Left and Right. Forexample, Joschka Fischer, former foreign minister and leaderof the Green Party, often demonstrated his understanding of Is-rael’s dilemmas and choices.

Although English is the lingua franca of Israel Studies, manyscholars often publish works in their own language. These pub-lications are comparatively unknown in the English speakingworld. For example, Vladimir Rumyantsev at the University ofTomsk in Siberia has published a book in Russian on Suez andits aftermath. Charles Enderlin’s 1991 biography of YitzhakShamir, written in French, contains important interviews with



many members of the clandestine organization Lehi, which wasdefined by the British Mandate government as a terror group. Inaddition, the books of well-known scholars such as Benny Mor-ris have been translated into French, German, Italian, Spanishetc.1 My own “History of Modern Israel” appears to be the firstsuch history to have been translated into Estonian.2

In Western Europe, Israel Studies is soundly established atuniversities in Britain, France, Germany and Italy. At the firstgathering of British scholars in November 2009, approximately40 academics attended. Since then, national networks havebeen established in Paris, Milan and Munich. There will be threechairs of Israel Studies in England by next summer, whereasnone existed at the beginning of 2008. Heidelberg boasts theonly permanent visiting chair of Israel Studies in Germany.

In Eastern Europe, there is a profound interest in Israel stu-dies. In Poland, for example, more than 60 people from 10 Pol-ish universities attended a talk at the University of Warsaw onthe work of the European Association of Israel Studies in No-vember 2011. In Rumania, the Research Centre for Israel Stu-dies at the Political Sciences Department of the University ofBucharest was established in October 2012.

In Russia, the Department of Israel and Jewish Studies is anintegral part of the Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies underthe auspices of the Russian Academy of Sciences. This depart-ment, the only one in Russia, employs 15 research fellows,whose fields of interest cover such subjects as Israeli domesticand foreign policies, the Israel-Palestine conflict and more gen-erally the Middle East. With its nine time zones, Russia is defi-nitely unknown territory. Israel Studies is reputedly taught in30 institutions – from the far East to Nizhni Novgorod toSt. Petersburg.

At the moment, there appear to be few people in Spain, Bel-gium, Holland, Scandinavia, and the Baltic states who teachcourses dealing with Israel. Yet there is concerted interest inHungary and Romania. Quite often the presence of a burgeon-ing program of Israel studies is related to the enthusiasm anddetermination of an individual.

1 Benny Morris’ most influential work is Benny Morris, The Birth of thePalestinian Refugee Problem, 1947–1949 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-sity Press, 1987).

2 Colin Shindler, A History of Modern Israel (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2008).

Israel Studies in Europe ■ 13


All this has necessitated the evolution of the European Asso-ciation of Israel Studies, an organization devoted to the scholarlystudy of Israel. Politically neutral, it is not involved in advocacy.Its individual members, of course, have differing and often strongviews on issues such as the Israel-Palestine conflict. Some preferthe solitude of academia and shy away from the public gaze.Others feel a need to fulfill the role of an intellectual engagé andto take part in debates and broadcasts in the public arena.

A network of Israel Studies scholars did not originate in Eur-ope. Perhaps this was a legacy of the Shoah. It instead emergedin Israel and North America in the 1980s. The Association ofIsrael Studies (AIS) held gatherings of academics in the fieldeach year alternatively in Israel and in the United States. In-deed, the 29th annual conference of the Association of IsraelStudies will take place at UCLA later this year. In general, Eur-opean scholars of Israel Studies were few and with little or nocontact with their colleagues on the continent. Compared tothe hundreds of academics that attended the annual AIS con-ference, the number of European scholars who participatedcould usually be counted on the fingers of one hand.

The European Association of Israel Studies held its first aca-demic conference at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Mu-nich, in September 2012. This was attended by scholars fromalmost 20 countries. The expectation was the submission ofabout 60 proposals for presentations. Twice as many were sub-mitted, and around 100 were selected for presentation. Morethan 200 people attended the opening session at the BavarianAcademy of Sciences. Moreover, at Munich the vast majorityof attendees were young scholars. A doctoral network wasbeing initiated and one for post-doctoral fellows discussed.

In addition, there are European scholars in other disciplineswho wish to add the teaching of Israel Studies to their list ofexpertise. The Summer Institute for Israel Studies at BrandeisUniversity each year attracts academics from all over theworld. The course provides a program of discussion and debate,led by leaders in the field, which provides the solid ground-work for future lecturers in this area.

So all in all, there has been a veritable explosion in Israel stu-dies during the last couple of years alone. Moreover the story isfar from over. This testifies to the reality that Israel studies isnot an artificial creation which serves the megaphone war be-tween Israel and Palestine, but is undoubtedly a genuine andfascinating area of research and discourse.

PHOTO CREDITSThomas Hauzenberger,München.



Rory Miller

The Politics of Trade, Science andTechnology: The Case of Israel and theEuropean Union1

Israel’s reputation as a leading player in science and technology(S&T) is well known. So is its success in developing creativesolutions to cutting-edge technological problems through in-novation and entrepreneurship. Less widely known is the ex-tent to which Israel’s impressive achievements in these areashave come to influence its political relationships with othernations and blocs. This is especially true of Israel’s relationshipwith the European Union (EU), Israel’s number one trade part-ner and closest collaborator in civilian S&T research. The de-sire of EU member states to cooperate with Israel in the broad-er science and technology spheres has meant that even thoseEuropean countries politically committed to the Palestiniancause and highly critical of Israeli policies have been keen todeepen links with Israel. This has a number of implications,both political and economic, for the bilateral EU-Israeli rela-tionship, not least for the EU’s ongoing attempt to play a con-structive role in contributing to a solution to the Israel-Pales-tine conflict.

Walter Hallstein, one of the European Community’s found-ing fathers, once stated that “We are not only in business weare in politics.”2 Nowhere has this been more clearly seenthan in the Community’s involvement in the Israel-Palestineconflict. Though generations of EU politicians have sharedJoschka Fischer’s belief that “Solving the Middle East and de-veloping a real vision of peace is the major, major challenge

1 Parts of this essay appeared previously in “The PLO Factor in Euro-Is-raeli Relations, 1964–1992,” Israel Affairs, Vol. 10, No.’s 1 & 2 (Autumn–Winter, 2004), 123–155, and in “Troubled Neighbours: The European Un-ion and Israel,” in Israel’s Strategic Environment ed. Efraim Inbar (London/New York: Routledge, 2007), 29–51.

2 “Hallstein Notes Political Goals of Common Market”, The HarvardCrimson, 23 May 1961, last accessed, 21 February 2013, http://www.the-crimson.com/article/1961/5/23/hallstein-notes-political-goals-of-com-mon/.

The Politics of Trade, Science and Technology ■ 15


for Europe,”3 up until the presenttime the EU has rarely been ableto impose its will on the partici-pants to the conflict or even tomake a constructive contribu-tion to the politics of peace. In-deed, successive Israeli govern-ments have been very clear thatthey have no interest in Europeattempting to embark on an inde-

pendent policy in order to push the peace process forward onits own.

There are, however, two interrelated areas where bilateralties between Israel and the EU have been consistently strong,even as political relations have been strained. These are theareas of bilateral trade and research cooperation in the S&Tsectors. This is not simply a consequence of market forces butis also the result of a policy embraced by Israeli governmentssince the late 1960s to separate their political relations withthe EU from their highly valued economic relationship. It hasalso been a consequence of the EU’s growing belief in the bene-fits of developing trade ties and S&T cooperation despite politi-cal differences and pressure from the Arab world.

From the time of the establishment of the European Eco-nomic Community (EEC) in 1958, Israel’s first prime minister,David Ben-Gurion, was of the view that the “closely knit com-munity […] would become a central force in world affairs,”4

and that Israel needed to forge close ties with it. Accordingly,Israel became the third country after the United Kingdom andthe Republic of Ireland to establish a diplomatic mission withfull ambassadorial status in Brussels. By 1961 Israel’s tradewith the six founding members of the Community accountedfor about 40 percent of her total exports. In 1964, despite con-siderable diplomatic pressure from the Arab world, the Com-munity signed its first non-preferential trade agreement in theMiddle East with Israel.

Though disappointed by the economic benefits of the 1964agreement, Israel viewed the agreement itself positively. As

1 Cartoon published inThe Economist magazineshowing CatherineAshton, the EU’s topforeign policy official,attempting to get inbetween anold-fashioned gunfightbetween the leaders ofIsrael and Palestine.

3 Ian Black, “Europe must stifle anti-semitism,” The Guardian, 20 Feb-ruary 2004.

4 See Michael Brecher, The Foreign Policy System of Israel: Setting,Images, Process(London, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1972), 348.

Rory Miller16 ■


Amiel Najar, Israel’s ambassador in Brussels, explained, thereal value of the agreement was that it provided Israel with“standing” in Europe that would pave the way for more valu-able links in the future.5 Senior Israeli figures, including YigalAllon, Abba Eban, Shimon Peres and Levi Eshkol, all favoredbuilding on the agreement as a matter of priority. By January1967, the Israeli delegation in Brussels was expressing its inter-est in a customs union in the industrial sector.

There is no doubt that the Israeli occupation, during the June1967 war, of Palestinian territories previously controlled byJordan (the West Bank) and Egypt (the Gaza Strip) fundamen-tally shifted international opinion away from Israel, eventuallycausing the Jewish state to lose the sympathy of European gov-ernments. In the immediate term, however, the war actuallyappeared to help Israel in its major objective of replacing its1964 economic agreement (which was due to expire in June1967) with an association agreement. As the Dutch ForeignMinistry noted, the war had created “a wave of sympathy forIsrael [and] is likely to help considerably the conclusion ofsome form of agreement of association.”6

On 7 June 1967 the European Commission adopted its reportto the Council of Ministers containing suggestions for the newphase of negotiations between Israel and the Community. Thisreport included a recommendation calling for the negotiationof a preferential agreement with Israel on the basis of Article111 of the treaty. This was viewed in the press as both “politi-cally provocative [and] a major innovation in the Community’sforeign policy.”7 However, on 27 June, though noting this pro-posal, the Council decided not to enter into a new round of sub-stantive negotiations at this time of uncertainty. Instead, theoriginal 1964 trade agreement would be extended until 30 June1968. In December 1967, as the longer-term ramifications ofthe war began to coalesce, the European Council debated EEC-Israeli trade relations. The Commission restated its supportfor a preferential agreement with Israel which might in the fu-ture extend to association. This was supported by West Ger-

5 See Ambassador Sean Morrissey to the Secretary, Department of Exter-nal Affairs, 5 December 1966, National Archives of Ireland (hereafter, NAI),98/3/337.

6 Lennon, Irish Ambassador, The Hague to Secretary, Department of Ex-ternal Affairs, 8 June 1967, NAI, 98/3/337.

7 Financial Times, 12 June 1967.



many, The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. Italy, a di-rect competitor of Israel’s in several agricultural product areas,was prepared to consider a preferential agreement, providedthat the context of negotiations with Israel focused not on theMediterranean alone, but on general enlargement. However,France, the leading European critic of Israel in the wake of the1967 war, opposed improved economic ties with Israel on thegrounds that a preferential agreement that abolished customsduties was out of proportion with Israel’s economic importanceto the Community. It even adopted the Italian call for expan-sion northwards as a way of avoiding progress with Israel.8

It was only in late 1969 that France agreed to withdraw itsveto on an agreement with Israel, paving the way for the Is-rael-EEC agreement of June 1970, which extended preferentialtreatment to industrial commodities and granted the most sig-nificant staged-tariff reductions on Israeli industrial exports upto that point.

The entry into the Community in 1973 of the United King-dom, Israel’s third largest trading partner and an importantmarket for Israeli agricultural produce, meant that by 1974trade with the Community accounted for half of Israel’s im-ports (ca. US$2 billion) and a third of its exports (ca. US$700million). Not surprisingly, Yitzhak Rabin, who succeededGolda Meir in 1974, assured the Knesset in his first speech asprime minister that “increased co-operation between us and… the Common market in particular will now be one of thecentral objectives of the new government.”9

The May 1975 EEC-Israel trade agreement, signed in 1976,was the culmination of almost three years of negotiations. Itwas the first agreement of its type between the Community anda non-member Mediterranean state. Foreign Minister Yigal Al-lon characterized it as a “great and even spectacular” opportu-nity for future relations with a European trading bloc that occu-pied “pride of place in Israel’s foreign trade.”10 Coming just onemonth prior to the first Euro-Arab Dialogue (EAD) meeting inCairo, the EEC-Israel trade agreement made the Arab world fur-ious with the Community. The Arab side argued that the agree-

8 Europe Agency Reports, 12 December 1967.9 Address to Knesset by Prime Minister Rabin on the presentation of his

government, 3 June 1974, Israel Documents, Vol. 3 (Jerusalem, 1978), 7.10 Statement by Foreign Minister Allon to Knesset on EEC Israel Trade

Agreement, 26 May 1975, Israel Documents, Vol. 2, 218.

Rory Miller18 ■


ment was “not in accord” with past promises,that it contradicted the Community’s Novem-ber 1973 Middle East declaration in support ofPalestinian rights, and that it “endangered” thesuccess of the EAD.11 Though acknowledgingthat the timing was unfortunate, the Commu-nity rejected these Arab criticisms. It explainedthat the agreement with Israel was not of politi-cal, but of technical nature, simply replacing anearlier bilateral document. Moreover, it was pointed out thatthe agreement was balanced by the Community’s economic co-operation with the Arabs under the EAD framework.

The 1975 agreement between the EU and Israel concentratedon the development of a free trade area for industrial goods,making explicit reference to a gradual move towards this goalby 1989. This suited Israel perfectly. Mindful of the fact thatGNP per capita was highest in countries where technology,chemicals, and machines made up a large percentage of ex-ports, by the early 1970s Israel realized the prioritizing “high-tech, high skill, science based industry” would be key to longterm economic success.12 This turn to S&T especially suitedIsrael, with its tiny domestic market, regional isolation, lackof natural resources, and need to make long-term, risky invest-ments in military technology in the face of relentless conflictsand arms embargos.

This decision by Israeli policymakers to focus on S&T as theonly area of potential comparative advantage has brought sig-nificant rewards, contributing to the 60-fold growth of Israel’seconomy between 1948 and 2010, the year that Israel’s formalclassification in world financial markets was promoted from“emerging” to “developed.”

As Israel’s economy grew, so did its economic relationshipwith the EU. In 1981, Israel exported US$5.6 billion to the EU(35.8 percent of its total exports). By 1992, on the eve of theOslo peace process, Israeli exports to the Community had risento US$11.5 billion (35 percent of its total exports). This was animpressive achievement given that oil and arms tended to in-fluence European purchasing decisions across the region, andthat throughout this period, Israel, unlike the Arab world, had

2 This stamp,published in 1956, ofTechnion, Israel’sworld-renownedInstitute of Technology,underlines thelong-standingimportance of scientificand technologicalresearch in Israelsociety.

11 See al-Moudjahid, 13 May 1975.12 Howard M. Sachar, Israel and Europe: An Appraisal in History (New

York: Knopf, 1999), 19.



no oil to sell and bought almost no weapons from the Commu-nity (there was a French embargo on the sale of military goodsbetween 1967 and 1992 and a British embargo from 1982 to1994). Moreover, political differences with Europe were greatlyexacerbated by Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon and the out-break of the first intifada in late 1987.

In response to the Lebanon invasion, the Communitydecided to postpone the signing of an economic agreement re-lating to trade credits to be provided to Israel over the next sev-eral years and also froze certain joint activities. (Greece alsoused its veto to halt the resumption of economic aid to Israelin the wake of the war.) In addition, following the start of thefirst intifada in 1987, the European Parliament postponed finalratification and approval of the trade protocols attached to the1986 Israeli–EEC trade agreement until Israel allowed Palesti-nian Arab citrus growers to market their goods directly to theCommunity via Israeli ports without processing by Israel or achange in certificates of origin.13 On neither occasion wasthere any broad consensus within the Community regardingeconomic sanctions against Israel.

One important explanation as to why Israel’s economic rela-tionship with EU member states has thrived despite major poli-tical differences is that as Israel became richer over this period(between 1980 and 1995 Israeli GNP rose from US$17 billionto US$68 billion), it became an increasingly valuable marketfor the EU. By 1990, Israel was importing US$7.5 billion worthof goods annually from the EU, making it the biggest marketfor EU imports in the region after Turkey, which importedgoods valued at US$9 billion. Egypt, the largest Arab marketfor EU imports, only purchased US$2.5 billion worth of EUgoods in the same year. More importantly, Israel’s trade deficitvis-à-vis the EU has developed, in the words of the EuropeanCommission, into “a constant feature” of EU-Israel bilateraltrade. This made the relationship highly lucrative for EU mem-ber states. By the beginning of the Oslo era the EU had a surplusof US$5.6 billion in its balance of trade with Israel.14

13 Ilan Greilsammer, “The Non-Ratification of the EEC – Israeli Proto-cols by the European Parliament (1988),“ Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 27,No. 2 (April 1991), 303–321.

14 Europa Press Release on EU-Israel relations, MEMO/95/127, 28 Sep-tember 1995, last accessed 21 February 2013, http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-95-127_en.htm?locale=en.

Rory Miller20 ■


In 1992, Israel entered into negotiations with the EU overjoining the European Economic Area, a move that was consoli-dated following the commencement of the Oslo process in1993. Indeed, the EU member states were clear that developingtrade with Israel would be one of a number of key contribu-tions they would make to the nascent peace process (alongwith funds for the Palestinian economy, the promotion of re-gional development, and increased purchases of goods fromareas controlled by the Palestinian Authority). This commit-ment culminated in November 1995 with the signing of an as-sociation agreement between Israel and the EU.15

Another key, if overlapping, explanation relates to the factthat Israel is a key player in the global S&T sectors. In 1974and 1977 Israel signed protocols with the EU under D-G-12(the Community’s Directorate for Research and Science). Sincethat time, bilateral S&T research and development (R&D) pro-jects with the EU and its member states have flourished. Inparticular, following the start of the global high-technologyboom in the early 1990s, Israel’s successful domestic programof investment in R&D and funding technology incubators tonurture high-tech talent became a model for EU memberstates, which in turn made Israel an increasingly attractiveeconomic partner, even as political relations deteriorated.

Following the freeze in the Oslo process after Benjamin Ne-tanyahu’s accession to the premiership in 1996, the EuropeanCommission urged member states to delay ratification of the1995 EU–Israel association agreement unless Israel made con-cessions to the Palestinians. However, only France and Bel-gium actually delayed ratification. In the same year, Israel be-came the only non-EU member state invited to participate inthe EU’s Fourth Framework Technology Programme.16

Again, despite the fact that EU member states argued vehe-mently that Israel’s policy of sealing off the West Bank andGaza Strip in response to terror attacks made a “mockery ofthe economics of peace,”17 the evolving ties between the EUand Israel in the S&T sphere continued to develop as Europe

15 Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Israel-EU Trade Agree-ment, 20 November 1995, last accessed 21 February 2013, http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFAArchive/1990_1999/1995/11/Israel-EU%20-Trade%20Agreement%20-%20November%201995.

16 “Science & Technology: The Way to Europe,” Ha’aretz Special Re-port(November 2006), 31.

17 The Jerusalem Report, 27 November 1997, 8.



looked to benefit from Israel’s position (in the words of News-week magazine) as the “only serious rival” to California’s sili-con valley in the high-tech sphere.18

The EU’s science, research, and technology frameworks arethe most important EU programs for the implementation ofthe joint policy on science and technology. They aim to sup-port pioneering research by junior and established researchersfrom EU member states and other nations invited to partici-pate in the frameworks. In 1999, Israel joined the Commu-nity’s fifth framework program. In March 2000 Israel gained“co-operating state” status in the COST research program andin June 2000 Israel was a member of the EUREKA research net-work. In December 2002 the EU and Israel signed a landmarkagreement that enabled Israel to participate in the EU’s flag-ship sixth framework program on scientific and technical co-operation. This came just months after Israel clashed publiclywith a number of EU member states over the (false) allegationthat the IDF had committed a massacre of civilians in the Pa-lestinian town of Jenin during the most violent period of theal-Aqsa intifada.19

Though Israel’s economy has problems, notably disparitiesin wealth, some structural weaknesses and a lack of balancebetween private sector independence and government inter-vention, it is also a highly successful example of the long-termeconomic benefits of robust investment and a research envir-onment that leads to cutting-edge technological innovation

3 Israel’s BenjaminNetanyahu and the EU’sJosé Manuel BarrosoPresident of theEuropean Commissionat the signing ceremonyof one of a numberEU-Israel science andtechnology cooperationagreements.

18 NewsweekMagazine, 8 April 1996.19 Jerusalem Post, 11 April 2002; Financial Times, 11 April 2002. By

mid-July 2003 both international aid and human rights organisations andPalestinian sources had acknowledged that the actual death toll in Jeninwas 52, at least 34 of whom had been armed. See Jerusalem Post, 14 July2003.

Rory Miller22 ■


and world-class entrepreneurship. Michael Porter’s diamondmodel predicts a nation’s competitiveness through a numberof important factors. One factor is a nation’s capacity for crea-tively overcoming deficiencies and compensating through in-novation.20 Israel has always been very good when it comes toovercoming “deficiencies” through innovation.

This has been noted by the EU member states. Despite thefact that political relations between Israel and the EU reachedan all-time low in the early 2000s, in the same period Israelwas party to the most progressive trade and cooperation agree-ments with the EU of any non-member Mediterranean state.By 2005, cooperation between the EU and Israel in the R&Dand technology sphere had (in the words of the European Com-mission) “increased significantly.”21

This was even true of member states like Ireland, which hasbeen politically hostile to Israel and openly supportive of thePalestinian cause inside the EU. During the 1970s and 1980sIreland’s economic involvement in the Middle East was domi-nated by trade with the oil producing, meat importing Araband Muslim states. Between 1981 and the end of 1994, Irish ex-ports to Israel increased six-fold (from IR£6 million to IR£40million). When the technology boom began, this changed con-siderably. In the first half of 1995, Irish exports to Israel in-creased by 83 percent compared to the same period in the pre-vious year.22

From the mid-1990s, the Irish government viewed upgradingrelations with Israel as a “massive contribution” to the devel-opment of its own S&T sector. In October 1999, the then Irishminister for science, technology, and commerce put it thisway: “[I]t is natural that we should seek to co-operate becauseour two countries have much in common in terms of our geo-graphical and population size; our dependence on exports; ourevolution into modern economies with a technology led indus-trial base … Ireland has deepened its relations with Israel and

20 Michael Porter, The Competitive Advantage of Nations (New York:Free Press, 1990).

21 “EU-Israel Trade,” Delegation of the European Union to Israel, last ac-cessed 21 February 2013, http://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/israel/eu_is-rael/trade_relation/index_en.htm .

22 “New Israel-EU Trade Agreement to give Boost to Ireland-IsraelTrade,“ Ireland-Israel Economic and Business Association Newsletter,Vol. 3, No’s 7–8 (July-August 1995), 1.



this has allowed economic relations between our two coun-tries to grow.”23

During the same month, Ireland and Israel signed a frame-work co-operation agreement in industrial scientific researchand technological development, through which both countrieswould focus on developing co-operative research partnershipsunder the auspices of EU-funded programs. Speaking at thetime, Ireland’s minister for enterprise explained the attractionthat Israel’s S&T prowess offered to Ireland: “Israel hasachieved an international reputation for a combination ofstrong academic infrastructure along with prudent governmentsupport for research and development. Ireland has clearly ear-marked further investment in this area as a key priority in thecontext of the national development plan (2000–2006) so co-operation with Israel provides an opportunity to facilitate aninternational aspect to the development of these objectives.”24

The story goes that it was during a 1999 visit to the Weiz-mann Institute and the Israel Science Foundation that Ire-land’s then science minister got the idea for the launch of theScience Foundation Ireland, which was founded in 2001. Evenafter the collapse of the Oslo process, as Ireland consolidatedits position as one of the champions of the Palestinian causeinside the EU, the Irish media was describing Israel as thecountry’s “most dynamic trade partner.”25 In the decade since,political relations have improved little, but Ireland still looksto learn lessons from Israel in the S&T sectors. In late 2012,following discussions on the issue during a visit to Israel ear-lier in the year, Ireland’s foreign minister announced that thegovernment would guarantee 75 percent of loans to small andmedium-sized companies in order to create an indigenousS&T research culture.26 This is a key part of Israel’s economicstrategy.

Similarly, in 1984, at a time when France and Israel wereclashing politically over Israel’s invasion and occupation of Le-

23 See Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment press release,last accessed 27 October 1999, http://www.enterprise.gov.ie. The websitehas been renovated and the press release section does not go back to 1999.Instead, see“Ireland and Israel: A Tale of Two Economies,“ Bank Hapoa-lim, Economic Report, Issue 121, Tel Aviv, 25 October 1999.

24 Ibid.25 David McWilliams, “Big Ideas for a Small Country,” The Sunday Busi-

ness Post Online, 17 June 2001.26 Irish Times, 18 October 2012.

Rory Miller24 ■


banon, French Prime Minister Laurent Fabius acknowledgedthat the S&T sector was a vital part of his government’s eco-nomic strategy and that Israel would be a key partner in thisarea going forward.

There is no doubt that the thriving trade and S&T relation-ship has had some influence in limiting the EU’s willingnessto support calls for economic boycotts of, divestment from,and sanctions against Israel. In 2004, at a time that seniorFrench politicians were developing a reputation as some of themost outspoken critics of Israeli policy, they were promotingnot economic sanctions, but the establishment of a new,Paris-based joint French-Israeli high scientific authority.

But it is also true that this thriving relationship has not inany substantive way neutralized, bridged or diluted politicaldifferences between Israel and Europe. Following the signingof the Israel-EU 1975 trade agreement, then Israeli foreign min-ister Yigal Allon cautioned against presuming that rising tradeties would result in a change in the EU’s political attitude.The prescience of this observation has become very apparentsince the late 1990s. To take one example, the fact that the EUhad a trade surplus with Israel of US$6 billion in 1997 did notprevent it from adopting an outspokenly critical position onwhat was viewed as the Netanyahu government’s anti-peacepolicies.27

Israel cannot neutralize the EU’s political hostility throughtrade ties and S&T cooperation, but it can take comfort in thefact that its trade and S&T ties with EU member states haveproved resilient in the face of major political differences. Forits part, the EU has been both unwilling and unable to leverageits unrivalled trade and S&T relationship to force Israel tomake political concessions. This failure is preventing the EUfrom achieving its long-held goal of transforming its impress-ive economic power into political influence in the Middle East.

27 See, for example, Irish Times, 28 May 1996 and 30 May 1996. See alsoIrish Independent, 31 May 1996. “EU Commitment to Middle East Peace,“Ireland 1996: Presidency of the European Union Bulletin, No. 7 (November1996), 2.

PHOTO CREDITS1 Peter Schrank, http://www.schrankartoons.com.2 Wikimedia, http://com-mons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Technion_stamp_1956.jpg?uselang=de.3 Europe in Israel Online,Newsletter of the Delega-tion of the European Unionto the State of Israel, Edi-tion no. 12, 13 August 2012.



Samuel Ghiles-Meilhac

European Jews Engaged in the Israeli-Arab Peace Process: A New Form ofJewish Internationalism?

Since 1948, the relationship between Jews in the diaspora andthe State of Israel has been extensively documented, studied,and discussed.1 There is a consensus among historians thatthe Six-Day War was a turning point in this respect. Jews fromNorth America to Europe felt in their collective identity thatthe existence of Israel and the danger of its destruction had vi-tal consequences for them.2 The few weeks between May andmid-June 1967 saw the emergence of a massive phenomenonof Jewish solidarity coming from all parts of the globe with Is-rael. The activities of this transnational solidarity movementincluded transferring funds, organizing mass as well as sendingvolunteers and material aid to Israel. Although the majority ofJews outside of Israel had never been to the country or met anyof its citizens, Jews everywhere expressed feelings of brother-hood. It became the Diaspora’s moral duty to help Israel. Cer-tain political dimensions of this solidarity movement havebeen the subject of numerous publications, not to mention thesharp controversies about the pro-Israel lobby and the measureof its influence on American foreign policy.3

1 Gabriel Sheffer et al., “Roundtable on Loyalty and Criticism in the Re-lations between World Jewry and Israel,” Israel Studies, Vol. 17, No. 2(Summer 2012), 77–128.

2 Eli Lederhendler, “Introduction,” and Sergio Della Pergola, Uzi Re-bhun, and Rosa Raicher, “The Six-Day War and Israel-Diaspora Relations:An Analysis of Quantitative Indicators,” in The Six-Day War and WorldJewry ed. Eli Lederhendler (Bethesda, Md.: University Press of Maryland,2000), 1–9 and 11–50.

3 John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, The Israel Lobby and U.S. For-eign Policy (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007). The book has pro-voked a considerable reaction. The debate organized by The London Reviewof Books and moderated by Anne-Marie Slaughter gives a sense of the ex-tent of the controversy. In addition to the Messrs. Mearsheimer and Walt,panelists included Shlomo Ben-Ami, Martin Indyk, Tony Judt, Rashid Kha-lidi, and Dennis Ross, last accessed 20 January 2013, http://www.scribeme-dia.org/2006/10/11/israel-lobby/.

Samuel Ghiles-Meilhac26 ■


Diaspora political support for Israel was one aspect of the in-ternationalization of the conflict between Israel and the Arabstates. Another one emerging in the 1970s was that armed Pa-lestinian groups increasingly targeted not only Israeli institu-tions and individuals, but also the Jewish communities of Eur-ope, thus exporting, as it were, the physical conflict to theJewish diaspora. The attack on the rue Copernic synagogue inParis in October 1980 is one among many such cases.

The political attitude of the Jewish diaspora towards Israelranged widely from loyalty to indifference or criticism. In thisessay, I explore some of these attitudes in this wide spectrum,addressing an aspect of the topic that until now has remainedin shadow. Libraries are full of books and articles about politi-cians who have offered their diplomatic skill with a view tosolving the conflict between Israel and the Arabs. From HenryKissinger to Tony Blair, Nicolae Ceausescu to Denis Ross, Mi-guel Angel Moratinos to King Hassan II of Morocco, these in-itiatives are well known. Yet apart from Nahum Goldmann’sfamous project of meeting with Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egyptin 1970 in order to start peace negotiations with Israel, diasporaJewish peace initiatives have been widely ignored.4 In this pa-per I analyze political dialogues between European individualsand organizations who, self-identifying as Jewish, succeededin organizing meetings with members of Palestinian organiza-tions and leaders of Arab countries.5

Why did European citizens who are not diplomats engage indialogue with political actors of the Arab Middle East ? Howdid such dialogue affect the relationship between Israel and itsneighbors? Can we analyze such initiatives as contributions topeace, as an unusual form of Jewish concern for the state of Is-rael, and as a way for diaspora Jews to participate in protectingIsrael?

Secret and public encounters before the Oslo agreements

Starting at the end of the 1960s, various encounters betweenEuropean Jews and members of the Palestine Liberation Orga-

4 Meir Chazan, “Goldmann’s Initiative to Meet with Nasser in 1970,” inNahum Goldmann: Statesman without a State ed. Mark A. Raider (Albany:Suny, 2009), 297–324.

5 In this paper, I will not consider Jewish individuals or groups who pre-sent themselves as anti-Zionists or pro-Palestinians.

European Jews Engaged in the Israeli-Arab Peace Process ■ 27


nization (PLO) took place. At first, meetings appear to havebeen isolated cases independent of any collective or officialpolicy. In 1969, the French-Jewish writer Marek Halter metYasser Arafat in Jordan and in 1972, in Lebanon6. According tohis account, although he had been in contact with Israeli PrimeMinister Golda Meir about the matter, he was acting only onhis own behalf. The meeting remained without any politicaloutcome.

The first time a Jewish diaspora institution was involved indirect talks with a Palestinian group was in April 1974, whenthe London-based newspaper Jewish Chronicle interviewedSaid Hammami, the spokesman of the Palestine Liberation Or-ganization in the United Kingdom. Hammami answered thequestions of Joseph Finklestone, the paper’s foreign editor.This interview marked the first time that a member of YasserArafat’s organization publicly stated that the Palestinianswould agree to a two-state solution as an interim status. It wasalso the first time that a member of the PLO distanced himselffrom Black September, the group responsible for the attack,two years earlier, on the Israeli delegation at the MunichOlympics. Although the interview had no immediate diplo-matic impact, it was the first direct interaction between a Jew-ish institution in the diaspora and a member of the PLO. Afterthe Jewish Chronicle received a significant number of lettersprotesting the fact that the paper had offered a platform to amember of the PLO, on 26 April 1974 it ran an editorial statingthat the interview was in no way an endorsement of Hamma-mi. However, the editorial also emphasized that the dialoguewith Hammami had modified the interviewer’s perception ofthe conflict. As the editorial stated, “Palestinians have devel-oped a real sense of identity.” This analysis was shared onlyby a minority both in the diaspora and in Israel.7

In the same period, individual European Jews acted as hostsfor secret encounters between Israelis and Palestinians. In1976, PLO member Issam Sartawi secretly met an Israeli poli-tician, Aryeh Lova Eliav, at the home of the former Frenchprime minister Pierre Mendès France. In Brussels at the end ofthe 1970s, Sartawi, Hammami, and Naïm Khader, the PLO’s

6 Marek Halter and Eric Laurent, Les fous de la paix. Histoire secrèted’une négociation (Paris: Plon/Laffont, 1994), 143–145.

7 David Cesarani, The Jewish Chronicle and Anglo-Jewry, 1841–1991(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 230.



envoy in Belgium, started to meet privately with Israelis suchas Major General Mattityahu “Matti” Peled, at the home of Si-mone and David Susskind, the founders and directors of theJewish Secular Community Center. Henri Curiel, a Jewishpeace activist born in Egypt, was also very active as an inter-mediary, arranging several reunions in Europe at which theafore-mentioned Palestinians held extensive debates with UriAvnery, a former member of the Knesset, journalist, and Israelipeace activist.8

Almost all of the PLO members who had secret or publicmeetings with Jews and Israelis in Europe and who voiced theirsupport for a diplomatic solution were assassinated. Hamma-mi was killed in his London office in 1978. In Portugal in April1983, Issam Sartawi, too, was murdered.9

Shortly after the outbreak of the First Intifada in the occu-pied Palestinian territories, a group of European Jews organizeda public event in support of Israeli-Palestinian peace. From 18to 20 March 1988, the Jewish Secular Community Center inBrussels hosted a public gathering under the motto “Givepeace a chance.” Debates featured Palestinians such as Han-nan Siniora (a publisher and journalist in East Jerusalem), ZiadAbuzayyad, Faez Abu Rachme, and Mary Khass (a Gazan edu-cator), as well as Israeli politicians, mostly from the LaborParty, such as former foreign minister Abba Eban, Knessetmembers Aryeh Lova Eliav, Moshe Amirav, and Shulamit Alo-

1 The 1989 “givepeace a chance”meeting in Brussels in1989. From left to right:Abba Eban, RogerLallemand (Belgiansenator), Hanna Siniora,Aryeh Lova Eliav. Behindthem stands DavidSusskind, founder andpresident of the JewishSecular CommunityCenter.

8 Uri Avnery, My Friend the Enemy (Westport: Lawrence Hill, 1987), 49–118 and 141–294.

9 Ibid, 166, 294.



ni (of the Ratz party, officially known as the Movement for Ci-vil Rights and Peace).

One of the first public gatherings of Israelis and Palestiniansin the 1980s, the “Give peace a chance” event, made possiblewhat seemed unthinkable in Israel and the occupied Palesti-nian territories, namely direct dialogue between Israelis andPalestinians. The Belgian-Jewish organizers, it should benoted, did not claim to be neutral. Although the secular Jewishcommunity was more critical of some aspects of Israeli policythan many other Jewish institutions, it constantly expressedits empathy and solidarity with Israel and its people. DavidSusskind and his wife Simone, the organizers, have explainedtheir action as the direct consequence of their profound lovefor Israel. As they put it, they felt it was their duty to do every-thing they could to ensure Israel’s future, not only by lobbyingthe Belgian government and encouraging cultural and econom-ic partnerships, but also by reaching out and talking to Israel’senemies.

French Jewish Institutions and the Peace Process:An Illusion of Influence?

For many leaders of the Jewish diaspora, the handshake be-tween Israeli prime minister Itzhak Rabin and PLO chairmanYasser Arafat in Oslo in 1993 was a historic earthquake. Just afew years earlier, they had been extremely vocal in their oppo-sition to the Palestinian liberation movement. The Oslo peaceprocess, leading to direct negotiations between Israelis and Pa-lestinians continuing over the course of years, changed the si-tuation dramatically.

In 1999 and 2000, initiatives by organized European Jewryled to a new stage of public diplomacy. In March 1999, in therun-up to the Israeli elections on 17 May, hotly contested byPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his challenger fromLabor, Ehud Barak, the Frenchman Henri Hajdenberg saw anopportunity for a surprising political move. Head of the Repre-sentative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (Conseil re-présentatif des institutions juives de France, CRIF), the politi-cal umbrella organization of French Jewry, Hajdenberg decidedto organize an unprecedented trip to the Middle East. This wasto be no traditional solidarity mission only expressing FrenchJews’ support for Israel. No, this time the French-Jewish dele-gation would visit Arab capitals and even the territories con-



trolled by the Palestinian National Authority after the OsloAccords. Cairo was the first stop. At the Egyptian presidentialpalace, the French-Jewish leaders were welcomed by HosniMubarak and his minister of foreign affairs, Amr Moussa. Themost spectacular aspect of the Egyptian stop, however, wasthe meeting with PLO chairman Yasser Arafat.10

At the moment of this meeting, the political context wasone of complete stagnation in the peace process. The publicdialogue between Benjamin Netanyahu and Yasser Arafat hadbeen on ice for weeks. In interviews given to the French press(Le Monde, Libération), Hajdenberg explained his ambitions.He believed that diaspora Jewry was now in a position to playa new role in the peace process by talking to Israel’s neighbors.He went on to explain that diaspora Jews had an opportunity toexchange views with Arab leaders in a way that could help thelatter better understand Israel’s psychology. French Jewry, Haj-denberg insisted, was in a unique position to connect more ef-fectively with Arab leaders because the majority of FrenchJews had family roots in North Africa.

After Cairo, the Franco-Jewish delegation made its way tothe Gaza strip, where they held talks with members of the PA.When the delegates arrived in Israel, they were met by a closeddoor: Netanyahu’s office regretted that a tight schedule made ameeting impossible. The CRIF delegation thus only met EzerWeizman, the Israeli president, whose office plays a symbolicrole in Israel’s system of government. The CRIF delegates be-lieved they were acting in Israel’s best interests. However,there is no evidence that they defined those interests in thesame way as the government of the sovereign state they weretrying to help. The journey, and especially the public hand-shake with Arafat, provoked a fierce debate among FrenchJews, with numerous public figures in the community accus-ing the CRIF of trying to interfere in the Israeli elections.

Nonetheless, the following year Franco-Jewish diplomacycontinued in the same vein.

In June 2000, leaders of the CRIF met Abdelaziz Bouteflika,the Algerian president, during the latter’s official visit toFrance. For the first time, an Algerian president met a leader ofthe French Jewish community. Moreover, the historical back-

10 Samuel Ghiles-Meilhac, Le CRIF: De la Résistance juive à la tenta-tion du lobby (Paris: Robert Laffont, 2011), 136–137.



ground was significant. More than 150,000 Jews had come toFrance from Algeria after it gained independence in 1962. TheHajdenberg/Bouteflika meeting came at a time when Francewas starting to have public debates about French colonialismand the Algerian war. One aspect of a possible reconciliationbetween the former colonizer and colonized was the Jewishelement. In this context the Algerian authorities saw theFrench-Jewish leadership as a mediator both with France andwith Israel. In the 1960s and 1970s, Algiers had been a centerof Arab nationalism and support for the Palestinians. Declara-tions made by President Bouteflika indicate that he saw meet-ing European Jews as a first step towards engaging in a full dip-lomatic process with Israel. Already in July 1999, Bouteflikahad broken a taboo when he shook Ehud Barak’s hand at thefuneral of King Hussein of Jordan. After talking with Hajden-berg in 2000, Bouteflika said that Algeria was ready, followingthe creation of a Palestinian state, to establish a “special rela-tionship” with the Jewish state.11

Fragility and Dependence of Non-State Actors

Legally, these European Jews were outsiders to the state of Is-rael. Politically, their limited influence as transnational actors,especially compared to their American counterparts, keptthem outside the policy-making process of the Israeli govern-ment. Their public actions had no direct effect on official di-plomacy and defense. But their outsider status did not preventthe encounters from taking place and appearing to grant dia-spora Jews a status of emissaries of Israel in the peace process.In times of heated conflict, however, the initiators of suchsymbolically meaningful public gestures found themselvespowerless. Hajdenberg has stated that he went, in coordinationwith the French diplomatic authorities, to the Gaza strip in thesummer 2000 to meet Arafat after the failed Camp David sum-mit. But he understood that, when it came to key diplomaticissues, he had no influence on the raïs.12

After the outbreak of the Second Intifada in the fall of 2000,European Jews could only witness, mourn, and denounce thecircle of violence between Israel and the Palestinians.

11 Ibid, 141–145.12 Interview with the author, Paris, 11 September 2007.



The non-state diplomatic over-tures by diaspora Jews to publicArab figures can be considered acontemporary form of the Jewishinternationalism which had itsheyday in the nineteenth cen-tury. In 1840, Jewish leaders suchas Adolphe Crémieux, fromFrance, and Sir Moses Monte-fiore, from England, undertookpublic initiatives on behalf of thepersecuted Jews of Damascus.13 Such advocacy was among thekey goals of the Alliance israelite universelle, founded in 1860in Paris, and of the American Jewish Committee, establishedin New York in 1906. Both organizations engaged in diplo-matic actions to protect and aid coreligionists in parts of theOttoman Empire and Tsarist Russia.

The latter-day non-state Jewish diplomacy I have discussedhere also highlights a pattern observable in historical Jewish po-litical leadership: the vertical relationship to power. In seekingdialogue with Arab political authorities (who in most caseswere not chosen in free elections), Diaspora leaders such as Haj-denberg were walking in the footsteps of the Jewish tradition ofseeking royal alliances assuring protection of Jewish commu-nities in exchange for loyalty.14 The CRIF sought not to estab-lish a dialogue with members of Palestinian or Arab society,but to influence heads of state. It will be fascinating to explorein the coming years the consequences that the Arab revolutionssince 2011 are having for Jewish diplomacy. Rather than focus-ing exclusively on political leaders, diaspora leaders may nowbe inclined to enter into dialogue with the intellectuals, jour-nalists, and political parties emerging in these societies.

At the same time, however, European Jews may also findthemselves in a situation where they are used by national di-plomacy as symbolic tools. After the death of Arafat in 2004and the restart of some political negotiations between Israel

2 Handshake betweenPalestinian presidentMahmoud Abbas andCRIF presidentRichard Prasquier,27 September 2010,in Paris.

13 Lisa Moses Leff, Sacred Bonds of Solidarity: The Rise of Jewish Inter-nationalism in Nineteenth-Century France (Stanford: Stanford UniversityPress, 2006), 120–126.

14 Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Servants of Kings and Not Servants of Ser-vants: Some Aspects of the Political History of the Jews (Atlanta: Tam In-stitute for Jewish Studies, Emory University, 2005).



and the Palestinian National Authority, meetings betweenEuropean Jews and Palestinian leaders resumed. In autumn2010, while visiting Paris, President Mahmoud Abbas metwith CRIF president Richard Prasquier and with local Jewishfigures such as René Samuel Sirat, former Chief Rabbi ofFrance. French president Nicolas Sarkozy declared during apress conference that this meeting had been organized at hissuggestion.15 Because of their need to maintain good relationswith their national political leaders, European Jews may thusbe co-opted by state public diplomacy, only enjoying very lim-ited autonomy. Moreover, Jews find themselves in a difficultposition when the interests of the home state diverge from Is-rael’s interests. In January 2012, the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretzreported that a meeting between Abbas and British-Jewish lea-ders had been scheduled on the initiative of 10 Downing Street,but had been canceled by the request of the Israeli embassy.16

The conflictual implications of the triangular relationshipbetween a diaspora, the host country, and the homeland re-main a central dilemma for Jewish communities seeking to re-concile their views on the Israeli-Arab conflict with the inter-ests of the Jewish state and those of their home country.17

15 The transcript of the press conference with Nicolas Sarkozy andMahmoud Abbas in Paris on 27 September 2010 is available, in French,last accessed 20 January 2013, http://discours.vie-publique.fr/notices/107002056.html.

16 Barak Ravid, “British Jews cancel meeting with Abbas in wake of pres-sure from Netanyahu,” Haaretz, 23 January 2012.

17 On the notion of a triangular relationship, see Gabriel Sheffer, Dia-spora Politics. At Home Abroad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,2003), 192–199.

PHOTO CREDITS1 Centre communautairelaïc juif de Bruxelles.2 Alain Azria CRIF.



Azriel Bermant

Britain’s Policy towards Israel underMargaret Thatcher

This article explores an aspect of Anglo-Israeli relations thathas been surprisingly neglected: Britain’s policy towards theArab-Israeli conflict under the Thatcher Government. Margar-et Thatcher, Britain’s prime minister between May 1979 andNovember 1990, was a strong believer in the urgency of a justand comprehensive settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflictbased upon territorial compromise. This is an interesting no-tion, since the British leader was known for her dislike of com-promise, as she herself makes clear in her memoirs:

“There are very few international questions in which com-promise is more necessary or more difficult than in the conflictbetween Jews and Arabs in Israel/Palestine. Throughout my po-litical life I have usually sought to avoid compromise, becauseit more often than not turns out to involve an abdication ofprinciple. In international affairs, it is often also symptomaticof muddle and weakness. But over the years I have been forcedto conclude that the Arab-Israeli conflict is an exception.”1

Thatcher did not necessarily take this position out of sympa-thy with Palestinian grievances (there is a view that she wasnot particularly sympathetic towards the Palestinians).2

Rather, this article maintains that she was strongly influencedby cold war considerations in her approach towards the MiddleEast. Thatcher was worried that failure to resolve the Arab-Is-raeli conflict would heighten instability in the Middle East,threatening Britain’s moderate Arab allies. In particular, therewas concern that the Soviet Union would exploit this instabil-ity to expand its influence in the Middle East at the expense ofWestern interests. Thatcher had initially viewed Israel as a bul-wark against the danger of an expanded Soviet presence in theMiddle East. Indeed, her early support for Israel may have beenlinked to her view of the country as a strategic asset against

1 Margaret Thatcher, Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World (NewYork: Harper Collins, 2003), 243.

2 Geoffrey Howe, Conflict of Loyalty (London: Pan Books, 1995), 477.

Britain’s Policy towards Israel under Margaret Thatcher ■ 35


the Communist threat.3 Nevertheless, over time, Thatcher in-creasingly viewed Israeli policies as a liability rather than an as-set for Western interests.

There is a view that Thatcher’s Finchley constituency(which she represented in Parliament), with its relatively largeJewish population, significantly influenced her position on Is-rael.4 Thatcher was exposed to pressure from supporters of Is-rael within her constituency. There is some evidence to sug-gest, for example, that she was uncomfortable about talking tothe PLO, partly as a result of pressure from the Israelis and theJewish community in Britain.5 However, Thatcher’s Finchleyconstituency had only a very marginal impact on her policy to-wards the Arab-Israel conflict.

To date, the historiography on the Thatcher era has under-standably placed an emphasis on the strong relationship be-tween Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. For example, Hugo Youngdescribed the Reagan-Thatcher relationship as “the most en-during personal alliance in the Western world throughout the1980s.”6 Yet there were serious differences between the twoleaders over Middle East policy, and these only became stron-ger over time. Thatcher became increasingly exasperated withReagan over his reluctance to take active measures to advancenegotiations between Israel and its Arab neighbors. The mainsource of Thatcher’s frustration with Washington was over thedifference in approach towards the moderate forces of the Mid-dle East.

British policy in the early 1980s was formulated in the con-text of recent events. In 1979, the year in which Thatcher be-came prime minister, East-West détente had broken down.The Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan and the Islamic Re-volution had taken place in Iran. The need to prevent politicalinstability and Soviet expansion in the region had become amatter of great urgency. Thatcher’s Middle East policy was dic-tated largely by concerns over threats to the stability of themoderate Arab states. The Conservative government of the

3 TNA (The National Archives, Kew, London)/FCO 93/2055, Letter fromB. Cartledge to JS Wall, 15 August 1979.

4 Mark Stuart and Douglas Hurd, The Public Servant (London: Main-stream, 1998), 119.

5 FCO/FOI (Freedom of Information), Memorandum of Meeting betweenM. Thatcher and King Hussein, 8 April 1981.

6 Hugo Young, One of Us (London: Macmillan, 1989), 249.

Azriel Bermant36 ■


time was unhappy with the LikudParty under the leadership of Me-nachem Begin, viewing its inflex-ible policies as having negativeramifications for the stability ofthe region. As a result, Thatcherlargely agreed with the ForeignOffice (FCO) that a policy shifton the Palestinian question wasnecessary to put an end to the si-tuation in which the Soviet Un-ion was an advocate for the Pales-tinians against an American-backed Israel.7

During a meeting in January 1980, King Hussein of Jordanwarned Thatcher that the Soviets were moving towards the oilproducing regions. Thatcher asked the king whether this wasthe reason behind the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. He re-plied that it was. Britain’s foreign secretary, Lord Carrington,added that the Soviets had established a centre from whichthey could operate throughout the region. Hussein described itas a wedge dividing the Muslim world in half. The king addedthat the dangers of subversion had to be brought home to coun-tries such as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf States. Hewarned that the Saudis were “ripe for plucking” by the Soviets.8

As mentioned before, one of the cornerstones of postwar Brit-ish policy in the Middle East was the establishment of regionalstability through building strategic alliances with moderateArab regimes. Stability was essential for Britain in order to pro-tect its political and economic interests in the region. A cautiousapproach was taken towards Israel, exemplified by restrictionson arms sales to the Jewish State, as a means to maintainingArab support for Britain. In view of concerns regarding thegrowth of Soviet influence in the Middle East, officials in Lon-don also believed that urgent measures had to be taken to ensurethat Arab states would remain within the Western orbit.9 TheThatcher government followed this line of thinking.

1 British PrimeMinister MargaretThatcher with Jordan’sKing Hussein at10 Downing Street.

7 The Margaret Thatcher Foundation (MTF), Written Interview for Ye-diot Ahronoth, 20 November 1987.

8 FCO/FOI, Memorandum of Meeting between M. Thatcher and KingHussein, 24 January 1980.

9 For example, see Evelyn E. Shuckburgh, Descent to Suez (New York:WW Norton & Company, 1986); Azriel Bermant, A Triumph of Pragma-



At first, Thatcher was opposed to a British move to supportPalestinian self-determination which was being formulated byCarrington.10 However, Thatcher’s personal experience of Me-nachem Begin’s strong ideological stand over a Greater Israelwas a significant factor which highlighted the constraints shefaced in Middle East policy. This was made abundantly clearwithin weeks of her coming to office. During a difficult meet-ing with the Israeli prime minister in May 1979, Thatcher ex-pressed her concern over his attitude towards a comprehensivepeace settlement with the Palestinians. Begin’s insistence onIsrael’s right to build settlements in the West Bank was deeplytroubling for both Thatcher and Carrington. Begin had only re-cently signed a peace accord with Egypt’s president, Anwar Sa-dat. However, Thatcher was anxious that Sadat’s positionwould come under serious threat if the peace process collapsed.She warned Begin that the Soviets would take advantage of anydifficulties in the Middle East in order to strengthen their posi-tion in the region.11 Thatcher was increasingly concerned thatthe inflexible policies of Israel’s Likud government were bring-ing instability to the Middle East and threatening Britain’smoderate Arab allies, exposing them to Soviet influence.Thus, Thatcher’s firm anticommunist orientation actually re-sulted in the adoption of an increasingly critical position to-wards Israel’s government. During a meeting with French pre-sident Giscard D’Estaing a few months later, Thatcher agreedentirely with her French counterpart that Begin’s approachhad been “fanatical and unrealistic.”12

Thatcher’s growing support for a resolution of the Arab-Is-raeli conflict was in line with her strategic view of the possiblethreats to Western interests in the Middle East. Thus, during ameeting with UN secretary general Kurt Waldheim in 1979,the prime minister stated that threats to oil supplies couldonly be resolved through a resolution of the “political pro-blems of the Middle East.” She added that the “West was atpresent witnessing the creation by the Soviet Union of a belt

tism over Principle: Margaret Thatcher and the Arab-Israel Conflict (PhDdiss, University College London, 2012).

10 TNA/FCO 93/2061, Letter from M. Alexander to G. Walden, 14 Sep-tember 1979.

11 TNA/FCO 93/1683, Meeting between M. Thatcher and M. Begin at 10Downing Street, 23 May 1979.

12 TNA/FCO 93/2061, Discussion between M. Thatcher and PresidentGiscard, 21 November 1979.



of instability across Africa and Asia.” Thatcher maintainedthat a settlement which would enhance stability in the region“would be a great prize.”13

By the beginning of 1980, it was emerging that Cold War cal-culations were a dominant factor in Thatcher’s policy shift onthe Israeli-Palestinian question. Thus, in January 1980, shewrote to US president Jimmy Carter to express her anxietyover Soviet intentions following the invasion of Afghanistan.She asserted that while the West had sought to lower the riskof war with the Soviet Union through arms reductions and hu-man contacts, the Russians had “continued to pursue a policyof expansion and subversion wherever they felt they could getaway with it.” In countering the Soviet Union, Thatcher ar-gued for providing encouragement to Muslim countries to de-nounce the Russian action in Afghanistan and called for the ac-celeration of negotiations over the sale of British arms toOman, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States. In particular, shedrew Carter’s attention to the view of the Saudis and otherArab countries that “the whole Western position in the areawas undermined by the Arab/Israel conflict and the failure tosolve the Palestinian problem.”14

Thus, Thatcher endorsed the British policy shift on the Pa-lestinian question contained within the EEC Venice Declara-tion of 13 June 1980, which called for an end to Israel’s “terri-torial occupation” and expressed support for Palestinian self-determination and the PLO’s association with peace negotia-tions. The British prime minister was moving towards a morepragmatic position on the PLO. The Begin government fiercelyopposed the initiative. Begin wrote to Thatcher in great an-guish, asserting that the initiative was deeply hurtful to hiscountry and “impossible to accept.”15

While Thatcher enjoyed a close relationship with Reagan,Carter’s successor, she became increasingly disillusioned withWashington’s attitude on the Arab-Israeli question. As a resultof the heightened Cold War atmosphere, Thatcher feared thatthe Soviet Union would exploit Arab dissatisfaction over Wa-shington’s attitude towards the Arab-Israeli conflict. This was

13 TNA/PREM 19/108, Memorandum of M. Thatcher’s Discussion withK. Waldheim, 12 July 1979.

14 MTF, Letter from M. Thatcher to J. Carter, 26 January 1980.15 ISA (Israel State Archive) 7308/5, Letter from M. Begin to M. Thatcher,

17 June 1980.



a factor in her strong encouragement for the AmericanAWACS airborne radar system deal with Saudi Arabia. The Re-agan administration sought to utilize the AWACS deal as anopportunity to promote a strategic dialogue with moderateArab states. During a visit to Washington in September 1981,Begin expressed his opposition to the AWACS sale in the stron-gest terms, describing it as a grave threat to Israel’s security.However, Thatcher had warned the US president that theArabs had lost faith in the Americans, since, according tothem, the West neglected the Palestinians and was one-sidedlycommitted to Israel. She added that a failure to seal theAWACS deal would result in considerable damage to relationsbetween America and the Arab world.16 Thatcher’s fierce con-demnation of Israel’s attack on the Iraqi nuclear reactor inJune 1981 was also influenced by the fact that Iraq had gradu-ally been moving away from the Soviets and seeking closerties with the West.17

By the mid 1980s, Britain’s heightened concern over a regio-nal stalemate resulted in Thatcher’s direct intervention in theIsraeli-Palestinian dispute. King Hussein and Shimon Pereswere at the centre of Thatcher’s diplomatic efforts. She be-lieved that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could best be re-solved within the framework of a confederation between theWest Bank and Jordan rather than by means of an independentPalestinian state.18 Thatcher shared the FCO goal of strength-ening the position of Labor leader Peres, who served as Israel’sprime minister between 1984 and 1986 in a national unity gov-ernment with Likud’s leader Yitzhak Shamir. Throughout theyears of the national unity government, Peres sought an agree-ment with Hussein in order to restore the heavily populatedareas of the West Bank and Gaza to Jordanian rule, while leav-ing the strategically important areas under Israeli control.

Thatcher was aware that she would have to act quickly tohelp Peres, since the national unity coalition arrangement re-quired him to step down as prime minister in October 1986,with Shamir replacing him. Thatcher believed that Shamir

16 MTF, Thatcher Letter to Reagan (Impressions of Arab Opinion), 1 Oc-tober 1981.

17 FCO/FOI, Memorandum of Meeting between M. Thatcher and KingHussein, 8 April 1981.

18 FCO/FOI 698–09, Cable from Head of NENAD to Heads of Missions:Prime Minister’s Meeting with Shamir, 23 May 1989.



was a hardliner incapable of de-monstrating the flexibility neces-sary for obtaining a peace settle-ment. During Shamir’s visit toLondon as Israel’s foreign minis-ter in June 1985, Thatcher hadberated him over his refusal tocompromise on the Palestinianquestion.19 She feared that thestatus quo in the Arab-Israeli are-na would be perpetuated if the Li-kud leader were in charge ofIsraeli policy, with dangerous consequences for the region.Thatcher’s determination to support Peres was expressedthrough her historic visit to Israel in May 1986, while he wasstill prime minister. She became the first British leader to visitthe Jewish State while in office. Thatcher would not have doneso if Shamir had been prime minister.20

It was very clear to Thatcher that any peace settlement inthe Middle East would require active American intervention.In her opinion, the United States was the only power thatcould apply pressure on Israel.21 However, Reagan was unwill-ing to challenge Shamir or provide backing to Hussein or Peres.This would become a major point of contention betweenThatcher and the Reagan administration. It was the issue of aninternational peace conference which perhaps produced thestrongest differences between London and Washington on theMiddle East. King Hussein sought to convene a conferencewith the participation of the five permanent members of theUN Security Council with a view to launching peace negotia-tions between Israel and a Jordanian-Palestinian delegation.Thatcher had initially been skeptical about the idea of a peaceconference since she feared that it would enable the Soviets to“play a wrecking role”.22

2 British PrimeMinister MargaretThatcher with IsraeliPrime Minister ShimonPeres.

19 FCO/FOI 698–09, Letter from CD Powell to P. Ricketts, 4 June 1985.20 Interview of the author with Yossi Ben Aharon, adviser to Yitzhak

Shamir and director general of the Israeli prime minister’s office from 1986to 1992, 6 April 2010.

21 FCO/FOI, Memorandum of Meeting between M. Thatcher and KingHussein, 28 May 1980.

22 FCO/FOI 0896–11, Cable from C. Pigott, NENAD, to AJ Coles, Am-man, 18 June 1985.



However, Thatcher soon became convinced that an interna-tional conference was the only way to achieve a diplomaticbreakthrough in the Middle East. In April 1987, Hussein metsecretly in London with Peres (now Foreign Minister in Israel’scoalition government) where an agreement was reached on aninternational conference to launch a process of negotiations.Thatcher’s own private office was involved in organizing thesecret Peres-Hussein meeting.23 In the months that followed,Thatcher worked actively to persuade the Reagan administra-tion to support the Hussein-Peres understanding (also knownas the London Agreement). However, the Americans refusedto support the London Agreement because Shamir was fiercelyopposed to the idea of an international conference. The Reaganadministration was deeply reluctant to become entangled in Is-rael’s internal politics. This was made clear to Thatcher duringher meeting in July 1987 with US secretary of state GeorgeShultz. The US secretary told Thatcher that there was no pointin promoting a new initiative without Likud support: theAmerican approach was to seek Shamir’s approval. Shultzexpressed his unease over Thatcher’s approach, which ap-peared to back Peres against Shamir in a domestic Israeli parti-san showdown. Shultz suspected that Peres would lose such acontest.24

In September 1987, Thatcher met with King Hussein and re-ported on her recent visit to Washington. She stated that theabsence of progress on the Arab-Israeli issue was “depressing.”Thatcher warned the Americans against giving Shamir thepower to veto an international conference. She believed thatthe hesitancy shown by the Americans was enabling the So-viets to consolidate their position in the Middle East. Indeed,Hussein had told the British prime minister that the Russianswould be able to supply him with MIG-29 jet fighters by theend of 1987.25 Thatcher warned the Americans that such adeal would endanger Western defense cooperation with Jordan,and would be highly damaging for Western interests in the re-gion. Thatcher pointed out to Reagan that there was a risk of“losing the initiative” and being outflanked by the Soviets in

23 Interview with Lord Powell, 18 November 2008.24 Reagan Library, Ledsky/92082/61795, Meeting between Prime Minis-

ter Thatcher and Secretary Shultz, 17 July 1987.25 FCO/FOI 0896–11, Letter from CD Powell to R. Culshaw, 11 Septem-

ber 1987.



the Middle East unless a strong diplomatic effort was made topromote the peace process in the Arab-Israeli arena.26

Reagan responded that while the United States was notabandoning the idea of a conference, certain realities had to befaced. Shamir was in a strong position and could not be ig-nored. The United States remained interested in the possibilityof a conference, and Shamir was aware of this. However, itmade little sense to go to a conference if immediate deadlockwas likely. Reagan supported quiet efforts to develop under-standings with the parties on the nature of the negotiations.Reagan wrote that the United States would maintain a dialo-gue with the Soviets and would continue its efforts to launchnegotiations. He promised to keep Thatcher updated, and ex-pressed appreciation for her assessment.27

However, Thatcher was uncomfortable enough with Wa-shington’s position on the Middle East to express the viewthat Britain and Europe had to show some independence onpolicy. For example, as early as 1981, in the context of differ-ences with the United States over the European contributionto the Multinational Force in Sinai as part of the Camp DavidAccords, Thatcher had said to King Hussein that “while thefate of the West depended, of course, on the United States, …this did not mean that the Europeans had to follow the Ameri-cans slavishly.”28 In an interview some years later in the Israelinewspaper Yediot Ahronoth, Thatcher warned that Israel’s po-licies were having a negative impact on the geopolitics of theregion: according to her it was very problematic that the Uni-ted States was being perceived as “Israel’s lawyer,” while theSoviet Union was viewed “as the friend of the Arabs.” Thatch-er argued for Britain and Europe to play a role as “a third party”which was “not bound by US or Soviet policies.”29 By the endof 1987, Thatcher’s concern over the growth of Soviet influ-ence continued to be a key consideration in her Middle Eastpolicy. She appeared to be distancing herself publicly from theReagan policy towards the Israeli-Palestinian question.

26 Reagan Library, Declassified, Executive Secretariat, NSC: System File,Box 230, 8790998–8791003, Doc 88420, Message from M. Thatcher to R.Reagan, September 1987.

27 MTF, Reagan Letter to Thatcher, 30 September 1987.28 FCO/FOI, Memorandum of Meeting between M. Thatcher and King

Hussein, 17 November 1981.29 MTF, Written Interview for Yediot Ahronoth, 20 November 1987.



The Thatcher government and the Reagan administrationwere working at cross purposes on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Re-agan and Shultz were effectively consolidating the position ofShamir and weakening Peres by withholding support for an in-ternational conference. In contrast, Thatcher was attemptingto strengthen Peres at the expense of Shamir and his Likudparty by supporting an international conference and trying topersuade the Americans to do so. However, this policy was un-successful since King Hussein would ultimately cut his linksto the West Bank in July 1988 in the wake of the Palestinian In-tifada, with the more radical PLO becoming the new addressfor negotiations with the Palestinian side. Peres was also sig-nificantly weakened as a political leader, faring badly in the Is-raeli election of November 1988.

Conclusion

The perceived threat from the Soviet Union was a highly sig-nificant issue that drove Thatcher’s thinking on Middle Eastissues. While she was a great admirer of President MikhailGorbachev, she retained her suspicions of Soviet foreign pol-icy.30 During her early months in power, Thatcher viewed Is-rael as a strategic asset which could help to contain Soviet am-bitions in the Middle East. Reagan shared this perspective.31

The difference was that the US president continued to view Is-rael as a strategic asset throughout his time in office and wasreluctant to challenge Israel’s policies. In contrast, it was be-coming increasingly clear to Thatcher that the inflexibility ofthe Likud-led Israeli government was a liability which washelping to boost Soviet influence in the region at the expenseof the West. On this point, there were strong differences be-tween the Thatcher Government and the Reagan Administra-tion. Reagan and Shultz were unwilling to support Peres, lar-gely as they believed that this would be interpreted as takingsides in Israel’s domestic politics. Arguably, concern about abacklash from Likud supporters in Washington also made theAmerican side reluctant to provide open support for Peres. TheBritish government was not subject to the same domestic con-

30 John Campbell, Margaret Thatcher – Volume Two: The Iron Lady(London: Vintage Books, 2008), 298–299.

31 Helena Cobban, “The US-Israeli Relationship in the Reagan Era,”Conflict Quarterly (Spring 1989), 5–32.



straints. It is noteworthy that Thatcher was unhappy with theperceived role of the pro-Israel lobby in Washington and the ne-gative impact it appeared to have on US policy towards theMiddle East.32 Thatcher did everything in her power to helpboth Peres and Jordan’s King Hussein. Nevertheless, she was arealist who realized that her efforts to help regional moderateswould have little success if Washington was not prepared toexert its influence in the region.33

32 Campbell, Margaret Thatcher, 338.33 FCO/FOI, Memorandum of Meeting between M. Thatcher and King

Hussein, 28 May 1980. Also, Thatcher, Statecraft, 246.

PHOTO CREDITS1 http://www.gettyima-ges.co.uk/detail/news-photo/ british-prime-minis-ter-margaret-thatcher-with-king-hussein-news-photo/26284892 http://www.gettyima-ges.co.uk/detail/news-photo/israeli-prime-minis-ter-shimon-peres-with-brit-ish-prime-news-photo/50388258



Oren Osterer

Anatomy of a Non-Relationship: Israeland the German Democratic Republic

The State of Israel and the German Democratic Republic(GDR) never established diplomatic relations. Although pro-spects for relations seemed promising, divergent ideologicaland political interests led to antagonism. By the mid-1950s,larger Cold War alignments as well as specific East German de-velopments made mutual recognition impossible.

The Soviet Union and Israel

Diplomatically, the Soviet Union was one of the initial suppor-ters of the establishment of a Jewish state.1 On 14 May 1947,Moscow’s leading UN-delegate and deputy foreign minister,Andrei Gromyko, stated that “it would be unjust […] to denythe right of the Jewish people particularly in view of all it hasundergone during the Second World War.”2 However, becauseMoscow’s prime interest in the Middle East was weakeningBritish and Western influence,3 the Soviets viewed withdrawalof British forces as the “first and essential condition”4 for anykind of independence in Palestine. Although the Soviets wouldinitially have preferred the creation of a bi-national Arab-Jew-ish state, they were prepared to accept a two-state solution inthe event that friction between Jews and Arabs continued una-bated. By October 1947, after months of continued violence in

1 In comparison, the USA, in February, 1948, retreated from its initialsupport for a Jewish state and suggested an international trusteeship for allof Palestine. Michael J. Cohen, Palestine and the great powers, 1945–1948(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982), 345–366.

2 “A.A. Gromyko’s speech at the First Special Session of the UN GeneralAssembly, 14 May 1947,” in Documents on Israeli-Soviet relations, 1941–1953, ed. Eytan Bentsur. (London: Cass, 2000), 189–196.

3 For further motives see Arnold Krammer, “Soviet Motives in the Parti-tion of Palestine, 1947–48,” Journal of Palestine Studies 2, no. 2 (1973),102–119.

4 “B.E. Shtein to A. I.a. Vyshinskii, 6 March 1947,” in Documents on Is-raeli-Soviet Relations, 169–172.

Oren Osterer46 ■


Palestine, the Kremlin spoke out in favor of the creation of anindependent Jewish state.5

Moshe Shertok (later Sharett), head of the Zionist UN-dele-gation and Israel’s first foreign minister, viewed the Soviets“not just as our allies, but as our emissaries.”6 No less impor-tant than Soviet diplomatic support, however, was the supplyof desperately needed arms in the Arab-Israeli War of 1948/49by Czechoslovakia, which continued until 1951.7

Home to the world’s largest Jewish communities, the USSRand the USA were the main potential sources of Jewish immi-gration to Israel. Thus, for as long as possible, Israel tried tomaintain a policy of non-alignment with either of the ColdWar blocs.8 By the end of 1949, however, circles within Mos-cow’s Foreign Ministry were convinced that Israel’s policy wasonly “disguised as ‘neutrality,’” and that it had adopted “a hos-tile, if at present restrained, attitude to the USSR.”9 Indeed,once admitted to the UN, Israel gradually sided with the Amer-icans. Yet the USSR never offered Israel any incentive for fol-lowing a different course. Soviet Jews were not permitted toemigrate to Israel, and emigration from the Socialist countriesin Eastern Europe was gradually restricted.

In October 1952, the Soviet legation in Tel Aviv assessedthat Israel had “chosen a course which is incompatible withnormal diplomatic relations,”10 and accused the Israeli govern-ment of instigating a countrywide anti-Soviet campaign.11 In-deed, the Slánsky Trial in Prague of November 1952, in whicheight Jews were sentenced to death for alleged collaborationwith the Gestapo and Zionist organizations, gave Jerusalem

5 See Seymon Tsarapkin’s speech of 13 October 1947, printed in YaacovRo’i, From Encroachment to Involvement. A Documentary Study of SovietPolicy in the Middle East (New York: Wiley, 1974), 48–51. See also “V.M.Molotov to A. Ia. Vyshinskii, 30 September 1947,” in Documents on Israe-li-Soviet Relations, 227.

6 “Excerpts from M. Shertok’s Report to the Provisional Government of Is-rael, 26 October 1948,” in Documents on Israeli-Soviet Relations, 389–392.

7 Uri Bialer, “The Czech-Israeli Arms Deal Revisited,” The Journal ofStrategic Studies 8, no. 3 (1985), 307–315.

8 Uri Bialer, Between East and West. Israel’s Foreign Policy Orientation1948–1956 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).

9 “I.N. Bakulin to A.A. Gromyko, 29 September 1949,” in Documents onIsraeli-Soviet Relations, 534–539.

10 “A.N. Abramov to the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 19 October1952,” in Documents on Israeli-Soviet Relations, 840.

11 “Excerpts from the Political Report of the USSR Legation in Israel, 31January 1953,” in Documents on Israeli-Soviet Relations, 868–870.

Anatomy of a Non-Relationship ■ 47


reason to be concerned about the safety of Jews in Communistcountries.12 The Kremlin’s Doctor’s Purge of January 1953, inwhich Jewish physicians were accused of deliberately shorten-ing the lives of Communist leaders at the behest of the Ameri-can Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, only added insult toinjury.13

On 9 February 1953, a bomb exploded on the grounds of theSoviet embassy in Tel-Aviv. Despite Israeli apologies and pro-mises to hunt down the perpetrators, the Kremlin protestedthat the “terrorist act […] demonstrates the absence of themost basic conditions for normal diplomatic activity,”14 andbroke off diplomatic relations with Israel. Although diplomaticrelations between the Soviet Union and Israel were revivedsome months later, the relationship remained sour. In 1955,Moscow and Cairo signed a comprehensive arms deal grantingsubstantial military support to one of Israel’s biggest enemies.The brief honeymoon between Israel and the USSR was over.

Discussions about Indemnification

The failed relationship between Israel and the USSR alone can-not explain the fierce antagonism between Israel and the GDR.The other Socialist countries of Eastern Europe maintained fulldiplomatic relations with Israel at least up until the Six DayWar in 1967. Rather, it was the question of indemnificationfor the Nazi genocide that proved a main obstacle in relationsbetween the GDR and Israel. The GDR’s ruling party, the SED(Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands), did not recognizeJews as a unique victim group of Nazism and was unwilling topay compensation to the State of Israel.

Initially, however, some early signs hinted at East Germanreadiness to find a solution. Most notably, in April 1948, OttoGrotewohl, co-chairman of the SED, privately floated the ideaof paying collective compensation to a (future) Jewish state.15

12 Peter Brod, Die Antizionismus- und Israelpolitik der UdSSR. Voraus-setzungen und Entwicklungen bis 1956 (Baden-Baden: Nomos), 88–91.

13 Jonathan Brent and Vladimir P. Naumov, Stalin’s Last Crime. ThePlot Against the Jewish Doctors, 1948–1953 (New York: Harper Collins,2003).

14 “Note from the USSR Government to the Israeli Legation in Moscow,11 February 1953,” in Documents on Israeli-Soviet Relations, 883.

15 Angelika Timm, “Der Streit um Restitution und Wiedergutmachung inder Sowjetischen Besatzungszone Deutschlands,“ Babylon 10–11 (1992), 128.

Oren Osterer48 ■


In retrospect, it is highly doubtful that Grotewohl’s idea re-flected an official position. On 5 October 1949, the Victims-of-Nazism Decree, prohibiting restitution of “arianized” privateproperty and compensation to people living abroad, was passedfor the Soviet Occupied Zone. Two days later, with the found-ing of the GDR, the decree was adopted law.16 Israel, however,continued to seek a negotiated settlement with the GDR until1956.

In early 1951, Israel involved the West and the Soviet Unionin the issue,17 attaining in September 1952 the LuxembourgAgreement, by which West Germany and Israel settled on 1.5billion D-Mark as compensation,18 of which one third was tobe paid by the GDR.19 But Israel and the GDR were caught ina deadlock situation: Israel was unwilling to recognize theGDR until the matter of indemnification was resolved, andthe GDR refused to pay indemnification until it was recog-nized by Israel.20 Further meetings, mainly in Moscow, clari-fied East Berlin’s ultimate line of argument: Because Israelwas founded only after the Nazi crimes had been committed,it could not be entitled to compensation for those crimes.Moreover, the GDR was unwilling to support a state thatserved the interests of international capitalism. The docu-ments of the Foreign Ministry in East Berlin lack any referenceto contacts with Israel between 1956 and 1971.21

The question of East German indemnification remained un-resolved until the reunification of Germany. When, in Novem-ber 1989, Erich Honecker resigned from all his political func-tions in the SED, the new government under Hans Modrow

16 Ralf Kessler, “Interne Wiedergutmachungsdebatten im OstenDeutschlands – die Geschichte eines Mißerfolgs,” in Arisierung und Resti-tution. Die Rückerstattung jüdischen Eigentums in Deutschland undÖsterreich nach 1945 und 1989, ed. Constantin Goschler and Jürgen Lilltei-cher (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2002), 197–213.

17 See Rolf Vogel, ed., Der deutsch-israelische Dialog. Dokumentationeines erregenden Kapitels deutscher Außenpolitik, vol. 1 (Munich: Saur,1987), 33–39.

18 Which amounted to a little less than half of the initially claimed 1.5billion US-Dollars.

19 Angelika Timm, “Das dritte Drittel. Die DDR und die Wiedergutma-chungsforderungen Israels und der Claims Conference,“ in Arisierung undRestitution, ed. Goschler and Lillteicher 216–217.

20 Angelika Timm, Hammer, Zirkel, Davidstern. Das gestörte Verhält-nis der DDR zu Zionismus und Staat Israel (Bonn: Bouvier, 1997), 93–95.

21 Stefan Meining, Kommunistische Judenpolitik. Die DDR, die Judenund Israel (München: Lit, 2002), 247 and 259–262.



started negotiations with the State of Israel in Copenhagen. InFebruary 1990, the GDR’s foreign minister, Oskar Fischer, rea-soned that it would be “necessary to work out a new positionon Jewish material claims.”22 The first (and last) freely electedparliament of the GDR adopted in its opening session a de-claration asking forgiveness of the people of Israel for the “hy-pocrisy and hostility of the official GDR policy towards theState of Israel”.23 The last candid efforts by the East Germangovernment to achieve an agreement with Israel were broughtto a halt by the reunification of Germany on 3 October 1990.

The GDR and the Middle-East Conflict

After joining the Warsaw Pact in 1955, the GDR’s top prioritywas to achieve increased international recognition, to whichend the SED leadership eyed the Arab hopefully. However,Bonn’s Hallstein Doctrine, calling for severing diplomatic rela-tions with any state that fully recognized the GDR, made theArab states reluctant to do so. Even the establishment in 1965of full diplomatic relations between West Germany and Israeldid not affect Arab hesitation to fully recognize the GDR.

An internal document of April 1956 best illustrates theGDR’s official position towards Israel.24 According to thedocument, Zionism had always been supported by the imperi-alist powers. The sole cause of war in 1948/49 and the “brutaland ruthless expulsion of the Arabs” had been the creation ofIsrael by “reactionary Zionist circles.” Israel had become the“main instrument” of imperialist designs in the Middle East,designs that were detrimental even to the “vital interests ofthe Israeli people themselves.”

During the Suez Crisis of June 1956, East Berlin quicklysided with the Egyptians. However, the SED’s policies wereseemingly contradictory. For example, it supported Israel’senemies in the Middle East, who were themselves not entirelyfree of antisemitism, while decrying West Germany as a neo-Nazi state. When Eichmann was put on trial in Israel in 1961,

22 Fischer to Modrow, “Informationen über die Gespräche mit VertreternIsraels,“ 15 February 1990. SAPMO-BArch, DO/1549, 10–11.

23 Volksammer der DDR, “Gemeinsame Erklärung der Volkskammervom 12. April 1990,“ Deutschland Archiv 5 (1990), 794–795.

24 Informationsdienst der Abteilung Agitation des ZK der SED, “DieRolle Israels als imperialistischer Brückenkopf im Nahen Osten,“ April1965. SAPMO-BArch DY/30/IV A 2/9.02/17.

Oren Osterer50 ■


East Berlin sought to use the trialto “show that West Germany to-day is ruled by Eichmann’s ac-complices.”25 At the same time,however, East German agitationclaimed a direct link betweenAdenauer and Ben Gurion. Whilea “gentlemen’s agreement” be-tween Jerusalem and Bonn to re-main silent about ex-Nazis in im-portant West German govern-ment positions probably did, infact, exist,26 East Berlin’s propaganda twist went further, por-traying Israel and West Germany as an imperialist Zionist-Nazi coalition oppressing the peoples of the Middle East.

In the 1960s, East Berlin stepped up its diplomatic efforts atwooing the Arab states. Walter Ulbricht’s visit to Egypt in Feb-ruary 1965 was a highlight of these efforts. Disappointingly,however, Ulbricht returned from Cairo not with full diplomaticrecognition of the GDR, but merely with a joint declarationcondemning “the aggressive plans of Imperialism, for which Is-rael had been created as a spearhead.”27 When the Six Day Warbroke out in 1967, East Berlin lost no time in portraying Israelas the sole aggressor. The Ministerial Council of the GDRblamed Israel’s “adventurous policy” for the military clash.28

Media outlets were ordered to show how the “bandog of theUSA, West Germany, and Great Britain” had been heavilyarmed by the imperialistic powers.29 The GDR’s only officialnational press agency, the Allgemeiner Deutscher Nachrich-tendienst (ADN), compiled a documentation that mentioned

1 US emblazes Arabstates with a torchnamed Israel

25 “Argumentation des Büros des Präsidiums des Nationalrats der Natio-nalen Front des demokratischen Deutschlands, Nr. 28,“ 10 June 1960. SAP-MO-BArch DY/6/4017.

26 Yeshayahu A. Jelinek, “Adenauer – Ben Gurion – Sharett – Goldmannund die Entwicklung der deutsch-israelischen Beziehungen,“ in Adenauer,Israel und das Judentum, ed. Hanns Jürgen Küsters (Bonn: Bouvier, 2004), 26.

27 “Dokumente zur Haltung der DDR gegenüber der aggressiven Politikdes Staates Israel, zum ökonomisch-militärischen Komplott Bonn-TelAviv und zur Palästinafrage,“ June 1967. SAPMO-BArch DY/30/IV A 2/9.02/55, 20.

28 “Erklärung des Ministerrats der DDR zur Aggression Israels,“ 7 June1967. Printed in Neues Deutschland, 8 June 1967.

29 Werner Lamberz, Presseanweisung “Zur imperialistischen Aggressiongegen arabische Staaten,“ 5 June 1967. SAPMO-BArch DY/30/IV A 2/9.02/54.



only Israeli provocations in therun-up to the war and blamed Is-rael for abusing “the longing ofJews persecuted by Hitler’s Fas-cism … for a safe haven.”30

In times of war, the SED’s agi-tation against Israel always cameto the brink of open antisemit-ism. On 9 June 1967, while fight-ing raged in the Middle East, Al-bert Norden, son of a rabbi andfor many years the central figurein the SED’s agitation apparatus,

demanded the publication of “all oral and written testimony”proving that Israel was proceeding against the Arab states justlike Hitler had against the USSR in June 1941.31

The ADN documentation chose its words carefully, speak-ing of “repeated bloody pogroms” against the Arabs in Israeland accusing Israel of keeping Arabs in “ghettos.”32

The GDR’S admittance to full UN membership in 1973 didnothing to alter its stance towards Israel. Turning a blind eyeto the role played by the Palestinian Liberation Organization(PLO) in international terrorism, East Berlin broadly supportedthe PLO, including in the field of paramilitary activities.33 TheGDR actively supported the UN-resolution of 1975 whichbranded Zionism as a form of racism. It also introduced as offi-cial celebrations the “Week of Solidarity with the PLO” andthe “Day of Solidarity with the Victims of the Israeli Aggres-sion.”34 Some experts claim that by the 1970s, the GDR hadbecome “the most decisive enemy of Israel in the Socialistworld.”35

2 „People withoutspace! Blitzkrieg! Theyhave learned this fromus, Comrades!“

30 “Zur israelischen Aggression und ihren Hintergründen,“ NeuesDeutschland, 9 June 1967 and Neue Zeit, 11 June 1967.

31 Norden to Lamberz, 9 June1967. SAPMO-BArch DY/30/IV A2/2.028/49.32 “Zur israelischen Aggression und ihren Hintergründen,“.33 Meining, Kommunistische Judenpolitik, 307–310.34 Thomas Haury, “»Das ist Völkermord!« Das »antifaschistische

Deutschland« im Kampf gegen den »imperialistischen Brückenkopf Israel«und gegen die deutsche Vergangenheit,” in Exklusive Solidarität. LinkerAntisemitismus in Deutschland. Vom Idealismus zur Antiglobalisierungs-bewegung, ed. Matthias Brosch et. al. (Berlin: Metropol-Verl., 2007), 286.

35 Meining, Kommunistische Judenpolitik, 305.

Oren Osterer52 ■


A delegation from East Berlin that visited Israel in Novem-ber 1980 delivered a devastating report,36 accusing Israeliyouth of “fascist tendencies” and behavior towards the Arabcharacteristic of “Herrenmenschentum.” But by the mid-1980s, the GDR had slightly modified its stance towards Israel.East Berlin hoped to open channels to American-Jewish busi-nessmen. On 9 November 1988, the 50th anniversary of theReichspogromnacht, the GDR opened its archives for selectedIsraeli scholars from the Yad Vashem memorial and researchfacility. From 29 January to 3 February 1989, East Berlin’s statesecretary for religious affairs, Kurt Löffler, visited Israel. Fol-lowing Löffler’s visit, the first ever by an official representativeof the GDR government, the SED decided that steps towardsestablishing full diplomatic relations with Israel were to bemade depending on Israel’s progress toward resolving theArab-Israeli conflict.37

Contacts with the Israeli Communist Party

The only constant dialogue between the GDR and Israel tookplace between the SED and the Communist Party of Israel.Not surprisingly, this dialogue ran along the lines of a typicalexchange between sister parties. When the Communist Partyof Israel split into two, with the newly founded Rakakh diver-ging from the Maki party, the SED officially remained un-biased. Unofficially, however, the GDR favored the Soviet-dog-matic Rakakh.38 There is still much research to be done onrelations between the SED and Israeli Communists.

In conclusion, chances for an Israeli-GDR understanding ex-isted until the mid-1950s. With the unresolved issue of indem-nification, the general deterioration of Israeli-Communist rela-tions, and the increasing clashes of the two states in globalpolitics, the Israeli-GDR relations over the following decades

36 Egon Winkelman, Otto Funk: Information für das Politbüro des Zen-tralkomitees der SED. Bericht über den Aufenthalt einer Delegation in Is-rael vom 05.–15. November 1980. SAPMO-BArch DY/30/11538, Bl. 52–71.

37 “Bericht über den Aufenthalt des Staatssekretärs für Kirchenfragen derDDR, Genossen Kurt Löffler, vom 29.1. bis 3.2.1989 in Israel,“ 20 February1989. SAPMO-BArch, DC/20/I/3/2781, 11–17; “Beschluß des Politbürosdes ZK der SED,“ 14 February 1989. SAPMO-BArch, DC/20/I/3/2781, 3–6.

38 “Entwurf einer Information an alle Mitglieder und Kandidaten des Po-litbüros über ein Gespräch des Gen. Paul Markwoski mit Genossen Vilens-ka und Silber am 24. August 1966,“ August 1966. SAPMO-BArch DY/30/IVA 2/20/828, 29–40.



were characterized by harsh antagonism and occasionally evenfierce enmity. The GDR’s official line portrayed Zionism andthe State of Israel, at times in openly antisemitic terms, firstand foremost as instruments of imperialism in the MiddleEast.

PHOTO CREDITS1 Junge Welt – Organ desZentralrats der FDJ,15 June 1967.2 Neues Deutschland –Organ des Zentralkomiteesder Sozialistischen Einheit-spartei Deutschlands,7 June 1967.

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Jakub Tyszkiewicz

The View of Israel in Post-CommunistPoland (1989 – 2012)

Since 1989 democratic changes in Poland have radically im-proved the official view of Israel. This essay will trace how Pol-ish attitudes toward Israel have evolved over twenty years of de-mocracy, and what issues have dominated public discourse.1

To begin, it should be stressed that from 1967 to 1989 informa-tion about Israel was very limited in Poland in no small part be-cause, in the aftermath of the Six-Day War, most Soviet-blocstates broke diplomatic relations with Israel and supported theArab states.2 The Communist-controlled mass media’s por-trayal of Israel as an “aggressive power” in the Middle Eastpainted a black image of Israel in the minds of Poles and a posi-tive view of “friendly” Arab states, especially Syria and Iraq.

Yet by the 1980s, as political opposition took shape in theSolidarity movement, the state-sponsored anti-Israeli propa-ganda had become less and less effective. Many Poles had re-acted against state opposition to Israel, developing a pro-Israelistance. Sympathies toward the American ally Israel were en-couraged by political opposition circles as a reaction to anti-Is-raeli Communist propaganda, and many Poles came to appreci-ate Israel’s achievement of having constructed not only awealthy state out of very few resources, but also the sole demo-cratic state in the Middle East. When in fall 1989, not long afterthe collapse of the Communist regime, Polish television broad-cast on prime time on a Sunday morning the film Shalom, a TV

1 This article focuses on Polish attitudes towards Israel, as opposed to at-titudes towards Jews. Sources are limited to verifiable texts – printed andavailable in the internet – and do not include anonymous online opinionswherein the author and general appeal cannot be ascertained (so-called “in-ternet trolls”).

2 See for example: Bozena Szaynok, Poland and Israel 1944–1968. In theShadow of the Past and of the Soviet Union (Warszawa: Instytut PamieciNarodowej, 2012), 406; Monika Kalinowska, “Stosunki polsko-izraelskiepo 1967 roku [Relations between Poland and Israel since 1967],” Marzec’68z czterdziestoletniej perspektywy, ed. Danuta Kisielewicz and MalgorzataSwider (Opole: Uniwersytet Opolski, 2008), 280.

The View of Israel in Post-Communist Poland (1989 – 2012) ■ 55


documentary made by Israeli television, many Polish viewerswatched with great interest.

In February 1990, Poland’s new democratically elected gov-ernment (which included many Solidarity movement leaders)took a major step by re-establishing diplomatic relations withTel-Aviv.3 Shortly afterwards a new Polish government al-lowed the transfer of Soviet Jews to Israel via Warsaw’s airport.Logistically difficult, not to mention dangerous, the operationallowed about 26,000 Jews from the Soviet Union to emigrateto Israel.4

From that time onward, all Polish governments have de-clared neutrality in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and havestressed both the right of Israel to exist in safe and recognizedborders and the need to create a Palestinian state within thepre–1967 borders.5 Even Jewish politicians and mass mediahave recognized Poland as one of the few countries to refrainfrom open criticism of Israel. Various Polish governments havestressed the historical ties between Poles and Jews, supportedthe presence of a sizeable Jewish population in Poland, and in-itiated commemoration of the Shoah.6 The 1991 visit of the le-gendary Solidarity leader and Polish president Lech Wałesa toIsrael demonstrated the continuing improvement of bilateralrelations and prompted a number of initiatives helping tofurther enhance cooperation between the two countries.7 “Is-rael Days,” organized in towns across Poland since 1994, haveallowed many Poles to better understand Israel. The Festival ofJewish Culture in Kazimierz (near Cracow), organized in 1998,celebrated the 50th anniversary of the founding of Israel. Andsince the early 1990s, the Polish-Israeli Friendship Society hasplayed an important role in fostering a positive view of Israelin Poland.8

Pope John Paul II played a crucial role in building a positiveview of Jews and Israel among Catholics in his native Poland.

3 Ibid., 285.4 Joanna Dyduch, Stosunki polsko-izraelskie w latach 1990–2009 [Rela-

tions between Poland and Israel in 1990–2009] (Warszawa: WydawnictwoTrio, 2009), 44.

5 Jacek Stawiski, “Jak godzic ogien z woda [How to reconcile fire withwater],” last accessed 12 November 2012, http://tygodnik.onet.pl/31,0,67221, jak_godzic_ogien_zwoda,artykul.html,.

6 Ibid. See also Dyduch, Stosunki polsko-izraelskie, 43–68.7 Ibid., 49–54.8 Ibid., 221–222.

Jakub Tyszkiewicz56 ■


On the occasion of the Holy Father’s visit to Israel in 2000,Israel once more found a positive place in Polish political, reli-gious, and cultural discourse.9 Catholics were pleased that theIsraeli government had preserved Christian holy sites, andgrowing numbers of pilgrimages to the Holy Land allowed Pol-ish citizens to see and better understand Jewish history andreligion.

Another important shift in Polish perceptions of Israel oc-curred after the Al-Qaida attack on the World Trade Center inNew York City. Since 9/11, Israel has been seen as a closeAmerican ally in the fight against Islamic terrorism – a fightin which Polish forces have participated both in Iraq and Af-ghanistan. In 2000 and 2005, post-Communist president Alek-sander Kwasniewski visited Israel. In a speech at Yad Vashem,he stressed “Polish interest in Poland’s Jewish culture” and“relations between Poland and Israel on many levels.”10 Evenright-wing politicians, such as the late Lech Kaczynski(elected president in 2005), began to see Israel as a bulwarkagainst fanatical Islam.11 A year after his election, Kaczynskivisited Israel. Of the many bilateral agreements he signed, onesponsored encounters between Polish and Jewish youth. The2008 visit of the new Polish prime minister Donald Tusk(from the Liberal Party) further strengthened the relations be-tween the two nations. His visit coincided with the official in-auguration of the “Year of Poland” in Israel, the first impor-tant cultural event in Israel dealing with Poland.12 In 2008,Kaczynski declared that Polish leaders unanimously con-demned antisemitism and unequivocally supported Israel13.This assertion was repeated and strengthened in February2011 by Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski. In a statementcarried widely by Polish media, he stressed that Poland and Is-rael had become close partners over the past ten years, and thatIsrael could rely on Poland’s friendship and solidarity. In Si-korski’s view, Polish solidarity with Israel was spiritually

9 See Luiza Arabella Wawrzynska-Furman, Judaizm a ekumenizm wswietle nauczania Jana Pawła II [Judaism and ecumenism in the light ofthe teaching of John Paul II] (Torun: Europejskie Centrum Edukacyjne,2009).

10 Dyduch, Stosunki polsko-izraelskie, 89–90 and 134–135.11 Stawicki, “Jak godzic ogien z woda.”12 Dyduch, Stosunki polsko-izraelskie, 327–328; Kalinowska, “Stosun-

ki,” 286.13 Dyduch, Stosunki polsko-izraelskie, 328.



rooted in the trauma of the Holocaust having been carried outby Nazi Germany on Polish soil – against Polish will, but infront of Polish eyes.14

Nevertheless, since 2009 Israel’s policy toward the Palesti-nians and the separation wall led to disruptions in the positivechange in Polish perceptions of Israel. Ironically, criticism hasarisen not from the right, but from the left side of the socialand political spectrum. The very same Polish press which hadpreviously played such an important role in building a positiveview of Israel now criticized Israel’s political line. Having firstserved as the unofficial weekly of the democratic oppositionand “Solidarity,” the Catholic paper Tygodnik Powszechny(Universal Weekly), edited in Cracow, in 1987 initiated alengthy and important discussion about Polish responsibilityfor the Shoah, thus facilitating the first open scholarly dis-course on Polish-Jewish relations during the Nazi occupationof Poland between 1939 and 1945.15 In an article entitled“Why I’m sailing to Gaza,” published in July 2011, a commen-tator stressed that Israel’s policy toward the Gaza strip re-minded him of the Nazi imprisonment of Jews in ghettos dur-ing World War II. In the polemical left-wing weekly Polityka,the world-renowned philosopher Zygmunt Baumann (whohad been forced to emigrate from Poland in 1968 amid a com-munist-led, antisemitic purge) leveled an open critique of Is-raeli policy toward the Palestinians, asserting that Israel’s con-struction of a wall around “occupied territories” was “aneffort to outdo those who had ordered [building] the wallaround the Warsaw ghetto.”16 Further articles similarly de-scribed the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinians assecond-class citizens (i.e. the ban on unauthorized well-dig-

14 Sikorski, “Polska jest krajemfilosemickim [Poland is a philosemiticcountry],” Bibuła 28. February 2011, last accessed 14 August 2012, http://www.bibula.com/?p=33547 (Sikorski’s words were printed in the Israelinewspaper Haaretz).

15 Jan Błonski, “Biedni Polacy patrza na getto [Poor Poles Look At Ghet-to],” Tygodnik Powszechny, No. 2, 11 January 1987, 1.

16 Gaszenie pozaru ogniem [Extinction of fire by flames] (an interview ofArtur Domaslawski with profesor Zygmunt Baumann), 16 August 2011,last accessed 12 November 2012, http://www.polityka.pl/swiat/rozmowy/1518590,1,rozmowa-artura-domoslawskiego-z-prof-zygmuntem bauma-nem. Baumann’s statement caused fierce controversy. See for example thetext of Gazeta Wyborcza journalist Konstanty Gebbert, who described Bau-mann’s words as “vile”, last accessed 12 November 2012, http://www.poli-tyka.pl/swiat/analizy/ 1518844,1,izrael-i-palestynczycy-polemika-k-geber-ta-z-prof-baumanem.read.



ging by Arabs, the expulsion of Bedouins, etc.).17 Right-wingcommentators have gone much further, however, attackingthe Polish government’s participation in “Israeli-American in-vasions of sovereign countries,” its never-ending “servility”toward Jews and Israel on every issue, and its tacit acceptanceof “genocide” in the Gaza Strip.18 Polish public opinion hasalso steadily turned against Israeli behavior and come to con-sider Palestinians as victims of Israeli politics. Nonethelessthese tendencies can also be found in other European socie-ties.19

Jewish accusations concerning the behavior of Poles duringthe Holocaust and Jewish demands for compensation for plun-dered and lost property influenced the Polish attitude towardsIsrael.20 In 2012, a small-town Polish high school planned toinvite a Palestinian activist. The ensuing intervention by theIsraeli embassy in Poland elicited much criticism among Polesand a negative reaction from the Polish Ministry of Foreign Af-fairs.21 Recently, the possibility of an Israeli attack on Iran hasalso negatively influenced Polish attitudes towards Israel.

It should be stressed, however, that the perception of Israelin Poland is also influenced by American support of the Israeligovernment in the Middle East. In recent months, an astonish-ing manifesto of support for Israel originated from the rightwing of the Polish political scene. A far-right wing journalistfrom the monthly Fronda stressed that Poland (or Poles, orCatholics) needed to maintain a strategic alliance with the

17 See for example Magdalena Muhgrabi, “Do ostatniej kropli [Till thelast drop],” Polityka, 12 December 2008, last accessed 21 February2013,http://www.polityka.pl/ swiat/analizy/1504498,1,swiatowy-dzien-wody-bez-wody.read; Artur Domaslawski, “Wygnanie z ziemi obiecanej[An exile from the Promised Land],” Polityka, 28 January 2012, last ac-cessed 12 November 2012, http://www.polityka.pl/swiat/analizy/1523343,1,beduini-z-wyrokiem-na-przesiedlenie.read.

18 “Wspólne posiedzenie rzadu Polski i Izraela [A common meeting ofPolish and Israeli governments],” bibula 23.12.2010 r, last accessed 12 No-vember 2012, http://www.bibula.com/?p=29648.

19 Stawicki, “Jak godzic ogien z woda”.20 Mirosław Kokoszkiewicz, Gdzie zakotwiczy lotniskowiec USS “Is-

rael”? [Where the USS “Israel” is going to anchor?], bibuła 6.07.2012, lastaccessed 12 November 2012, http://www.bibula.com/?p=58439.

21 I LO w Tarnowie: Ministerstwo Spraw Zagranicznych uwaza za nies-tosowna interwencje ambasady Izraela [I LO in Tarnow: Ministery of For-eign Affiars considers intervention of the Israeli Embassy inappropriate],last accessed 12 November 2012, http://www.tarwizja.pl/index.php/infor-macje/2990-i-lo-w-tarnowie-ministerstwo-spraw-zagranicznych-uwaza-za-niestosowna-interwencje-ambasady-izraela.



United States and Israel because these states played a signifi-cant and positive role in defending Christian civilization.22

This view of Israel as a strong American bulwark in the MiddleEast (sometimes sarcastically referred to as the “USS Israel”)reveals abiding changes in perceptions of Israel by groups thatuntil now had sustained a rather reluctant attitude to thatcountry.23 At the same time, negative views have grown onthe left, which used to be sympathetic to Israel.

It is also important to highlight recent non-political activ-ities that have fostered a positive view of Israel in Poland. His-tory books describe the relations between Poland and Israel asbeginning immediately after World War II. Notable in this re-spect are two books on Polish-Israeli relations before 1967.One, by Bozena Szaynok appeared in English in 2012;24 theother, a source book edited by Szymon Rudnicki and MarcosSilber, appeared in both Polish and Hebrew in 2009.25 Israelihistory can also be studied in Poland using works by foreignscholars like Colin Shindler, whose work has been translatedinto Polish,26 and by journalists like Pawel Smolenski, who re-cently published Israel Does not Fly any Longer.27 Also influ-ential is Teresa Toranska’s documentary film Dworzec Gdans-ki [Gdanski Railway Station], in which Polish Jews who had toleave their homeland during the Communist antisemitic purgeof 1968 are interviewed. Both this film and a book based on itpublished in 2008 have played a role in educating Poles aboutIsraeli citizens who still cultivate the Polish language and re-member their roots.28

22 “Wywiad z Tomaszem Terlikowskim”, 19 February 2011, last ac-cessed 12 November 2012, http://fzp.salon24.pl/280017,wywiad-z-tomas-zem-p-terlikowskim.

23 See for example Jacek Kwiecinski, “Izrael – wróg publiczny nr 1? [Is Is-rael public enemy no 1?],” Gazeta Polska, No. 33, 17 August 2011.

24 Szaynok, Poland and Israel.25 Stosunki polsko-izraelskie (1945–1967). Wybór dokumentów, ed.

Szymon Rudnicki and Marcos Silber (Warszawa: Archiwum Panstwowe,2009). Likewise, in 2010 the young Polish scholar Joanna Dyduch wrote animportant analysis of Polish-Israeli relations since 1990 entitled From Nor-malization to Strategic Partnership (Dyduch, Stosunki).

26 Colin Shindler, Historia współczesnego Izraela (Warszawa: Ksiazka iWiedza, 2011). The English version appeared as A History of Modern Israel(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).

27 Paweł Smolenski, Izrael juz nie frunie (Wołowiec: WydawnictwoCzarne, 2011).

28 Teresa Toranska, Jestesmy. Rozstania 68[We are. Separations 68](Warszawa: Swiat Ksiazki, 2008).



To conclude, there is reason to hope that a positive view ofIsrael may be nurtured in Poland in the future. As mentionedearlier, a bilateral agreement between Poland and Israel fosterssignificant growth in the number of organized encounters be-tween Polish and Jewish youth. A particularly valuable educa-tional initiative has been organized by the Museum of the His-tory of Polish Jews in Warsaw.29 Polish fellows spend threemonths in Israel to learn about Israel’s history, tradition, andculture, as well as about the current social situation there. Atthe same time, young Israelis come to Poland for a similar pur-pose. In both cases, young people meet, exchange ideas, andplay sports together. There is hope that such initiatives mayfoster a positive view of Israel in Poland, and vice versa.

29 See Wymiany studentów z Polski i Izraela [Exchange of Polish and Is-raeli students], last accessed 21 February 2013, http://www.jewishmuseu-m.org.pl/pl/cms/wymiany-studentow-z-polski-i-izraela/.



Tamara Or

Israel and Europe: Mapping the Past,Shaping the Future

A Report about the First International Academic Conferenceof the European Association of Israel Studies (EAIS), heldfrom 10–12 September 2012 at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich

From 10–12 September 2012, Ludwig-Maximilians-UniversitätMunich hosted the First International Academic Conference ofthe European Association of Israel Studies (EAIS), an organiza-tion dedicated to creating a European network of scholars inthe field of Israel Studies. Chaired by Professor Michael Bren-ner (Munich) and Professor Colin Shindler (London), the con-ference marked the beginning of the EAIS’s activities.

Starting Point: Israel Studies in Europe?

What is special about a European Association of Israel Studies,and why do we need one? Since 1985, an international and in-terdisciplinary network promoting research on modern Israelcalled the Association of Israel Studies (AIS) has been active.Comprising scholars from diverse fields, the AIS is affiliatedwith the Middle East Studies Association of North America.The great majority of its members are Americans and Israelis.European scholars, by contrast, are rarely among the speakersat AIS events.

Addressing this disparity, Professor Colin Shindler (London)and Professor Alan Pieckhoff (Paris) examined the scholarlylandscape of Israel Studies in Europe. Their findings were andare remarkable. Europe is home to numerous research projectsin the field of Israel Studies. Courses in Israel Studies are spon-sored by diverse disciplines, including History, PoliticalScience, and Jewish Studies, as well as Economics, CulturalStudies, and Linguistics. Not only the variety of fields, butalso the geographic range of institutes involved came as a sur-prise. From Siberia to the Atlantic, past and present of mod-ern-day Israel are the subject of teaching and research through-out Europe. The poor visibility of Israel Studies in Europe thus

Tamara Or62 ■


reflects neither a dearth of European scholarship nor, as theconference was to show, the important role in Israel Studiesthat European scholars can and should play.

The poor visibility of European scholarship in the field of Is-rael Studies can largely be explained by two factors:

Most European Universities do not treat Israel Studies as aself-sufficient discipline. In Germany, for example, no univer-sity maintains a professorship in the field of Israel Studies.

Networking among European scholars pursuing Israel Stu-dies is poor. Whereas Israel Studies are typically interdisciplin-ary, European scholarship still observes boundaries betweenindividual disciplines. Interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinarynetworking forums are rare.

The founding of the EAIS, therefore, is an important mile-stone both for Israel Studies in Europe and for European scho-larly networks in general. By demonstrating, as Professor ColinShindler noted in his welcoming address, “what is and will bepossible in Europe,” the Munich conference sent an importantsignal.

The Conference

As the conference statistics show, interest in creating networksamong European scholars teaching and researching in the fieldof Israel Studies is intense. One hundred scholars and seventyother participants attended. They hailed from 20 Europeancountries, ranging from Russia to Portugal, as well as from Is-rael. A few made the journey from the USA. For two days, theHistoricum of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität resoundedwith discussions of current research topics and findings.

The conference opened in the Bavarian Academy of Sciencesand Humanities with a well attended podium discussion titled“Israel, Palestine, Europe, and the Arab Spring,” chaired byProfessor Raffaelle Del Sarto of the University of Florence.With an audience of around 200 listeners, Professor MuntherS. Dajani of Al-Quds University Jerusalem, former Israeli am-bassador Avi Primor (1987–1999), and Professor Rita Süs-smuth, former Cabinet Minister and President of the Bundes-tag (1988–1998), discussed strategies for resolving the MiddleEast conflict. All three speakers raised the issue, in differentcontexts, of political promises.

For Dajani, the “Arab Spring” – or, in terms he found morefitting, the “Arab Autumn” – has its roots in a promise made

Israel and Europe: Mapping the Past, Shaping the Future ■ 63


to the younger generation of Arabs, namely that educationwould enable them to escape social ills such as poverty, a highunemployment, and poor medical care. The promise was bro-ken, dashing hopes of a better future. Foreign aid, includingEuropean aid, was not reaching the population. Avi Primor em-phasized that Europe could play a central role in resolving theMiddle East conflict: Peace is a European interest, and attain-able. However, convincing Israeli society that peace is attain-able requires addressing the population’s increasing securityconcerns. Therefore, the international community must guar-antee peace by means of a political promise of security. RitaSüssmuth pointed out that politicians, if they are to act withforesight, must rely on the work of scholars. She thereforemade a case for joint Arab-Jewish academic projects promotingnot just good programs, but also “good practice,” which couldeven help eliminate anti-Islamic resentment in Europe.

The following morning, in the Historicum, the conferenceitself, Israel and Europe. Mapping the Past. Shaping the Future,began. Twenty-seven panels presented three to five paperseach, with four to five panels running simultaneously.

One focus of the conference was on relations between Israeland individual European countries, in particular the post-So-viet states, Poland, Italy, and Germany. Some speakers ad-dressed the transformations within the Jewish communitiesin Germany following the establishment of diplomatic rela-tions between Germany and Israel. Others considered the fu-ture of relations between Israel and various European coun-tries. Michael Wolffsohn (Munich) pointed out that Germanpolicy will not support Israel indefinitely, nor unconditionally.From World War Two the two countries drew divergent con-clusions. The Jewish state holds to the maxim of never againbeing a victim, and thus accords the military a prominent placein society. Postwar Germany, by contrast, was built on thedoctrine of never again initiating the use of military force. Asa result of these historical lessons, Israel and Germany willdrift apart politically. As other speakers pointed out, however,countries such as Poland are moving closer to Israel. Alla Za-kharenko (Odessa) described how young Israelis traveling toPoland continue to see Poland as the “land of death” and a“Jewish cemetery.” In his paper on the post-Communist Polishview of Israel, Jakub Tyskiewicz (Warsaw) presented evidencefor a rapprochement of the two states. Based on his examina-tion of Polish mass media, including the Internet, in the last

Tamara Or64 ■


20 years, he concluded that young Poles have distanced them-selves from the Communist portrayal of Israel as an enemystate, developing new sympathies for the State of Israel. Like-wise, Dzmitry Shavialiou (Vilna) and Yuval Moshkovitz (Lon-don), in their examinations of emigration and remigration ofJewish Israelis to Russia and Great Britain, respectively, de-monstrated shifting views on the State of Israel. Both groups ofremigrants are defining themselves in “new” ways that unin-tentionally resemble historical Jewish concepts of Diaspora,such as Dubnow’s autonomism. Secular Jewish Diaspora con-cepts from the first half of the 20th century also figured in pa-pers by Tamara Or (Berlin) and Aviva Halamish (Tel Aviv). Ha-lamish showed a dialectic influence of Europe on Zionism andIsraeli society. On the one hand, a “yearning for Europe” is be-coming increasingly noticeable, while on the other hand, thewidespread doctrine rejecting Jewish Diaspora existence isalive and well. According to Yair Wallach (London), Israeli so-ciety continues to perceive Diaspora nationalism not as an op-portunity, but as a threat. Unlike the terms “post-Feminism”and “post-Communism,” “post-Zionism” still bears a negativeconnotation. Zionism, he argued, should be understood notonly as a political project, but also as a category of collectiveidentity construction.

Several papers focused on the topic of identity shaping. Howdo Israeli and European museums construct ethnic identities?How does Israeli cinema construct identity, and what imagesof women does it project? How does the lens of literature andtheater shape European-Israeli relations? Anat Feinberg (Hei-delberg) considered Dan Ben-Amoz’s little-known novel Mas-ken in Frankfurt, recalling it, as it were, from oblivion, whileNadjat Abdulhaq discussed how Arab literature portrays ArabJews.

The peace process in the Middle East, domestic and foreignIsraeli policy, Israeli national security––the conference also fo-cused on questions from the realm of political science. MosheBehar (Manchester) criticized that numerous research projectsignore the fact that West Bank settlement has progressed underboth left-wing and right-wing government coalitions. Accord-ing to several papers on Israeli settlement policy and the roleof the military, it is urgently necessary that research into thesettler movement be conducted in a non-ideological scholarlycontext. For Marco Allegra (Lisbon) and Erez Maggor (Jerusa-lem), for example, the settlements are not self-contained units,



but instead reflect developments in Israeli society as a whole.This is especially true of settlements located near large Israelicities, settlements which have hardly been studied. In thesame session, Johannes Becker (Berlin) argued that the ques-tion of Israeli territorial expansion should be examined in con-nection with and comparison to developments in Arab statessuch as Syria and Morocco.

Throughout the conference, speakers pointed to the histori-cal, political, and economic importance of Europe and the EUfor the past and present of Israel/Palestine. Whereas Ruth Bev-an (New York) ascribed to Europe and the EU an insignificantrole in future political and economic developments in the Mid-dle East, Shelly Gottfried (London) and Jerzy Wójcik (Krakow)made a case for more EU involvement. Despite being Israelsmain foreign trade partner, the EU has never had much politi-cal influence. For both Gottfried and Wójcik, Europe’s domi-nance in foreign trade should be put to greater political use instimulating the peace process. In his review, during the lunchbreak of the first conference day, of the Israeli European PolicyNetwork’s activities over the last decade, Professor StephanStetter concurred with this evaluation. Subsequently, in ashort speech, former Israeli ambassador Shimon Stein (2001–2007) called upon the EU to decide now whether it wants to bea “player” in the Middle East.

How European is Israel? Does Israel belong to the West or tothe East? In a lecture delivered over dinner at the restaurant“Einstein” and titled “West and East: The Politics of Position-ing Israel,” Ilan Troen (Boston) examined arguments for bothpositions. On the one hand, institutions in Israel, a OECDmember, are largely European in orientation, but on the otherhand, Israeli political parties such as Shas maintain an expli-citly anti-Western and anti-European profile. Troen empha-sized, moreover, how vitally important it is that European uni-versities establish Israel Studies as an independent academicsubject, as American universities, albeit belatedly, have al-ready done.

Europe’s role for and in Israel will be decided in the future.For the debate about how that future relationship will look, itis certain that we will require non-ideological discussion andscholarly expertise in the field of Israel Studies––not just inAmerica, but also in Europe. Future conferences should con-tinue the discussion in more detail. For example, economicsshould receive more attention, and new topics such as the di-

Tamara Or66 ■


dactics of Israel Studies should be addressed. The EAIS’s found-ing conference in Munich illuminated the path toward estab-lishing Israel Studies in Europe. Already now, as the confer-ence made clear, Israel Studies throughout Europe rests on asolid foundation.



Noam Zadoff

“40 Gills of Scotch Whiskey”

A Satirical Birthday Speech from Mandatory Palestine

Jerusalem under the British Mandate was in a way a Europeancity. Situated in the heart of the Levant, the sleepy town under-went striking changes within a short period of time. Existingneighborhoods grew and new ones were established. Europeanurban planning and architecture brought by Jewish immigrantsfrom the continent were increasingly discernible in the citycenter and the new neighborhoods.

On the social level, Jerusalem was divided into small, se-cluded groups defined by the national and cultural identitiesof their members. One such group was a private circle of intel-lectuals called Pilegesh, which used to meet regularly duringthe 1930s and the 1940s in the neighborhood Rehavia.1 Mostof the participants of this circle were originally from German-speaking countries and had immigrated to Israel as a conse-quence of their Zionist convictions. Almost all of them wereassociated with the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Themeetings were non-academic and dedicated to discussions ofmundane matters in a humorous atmosphere and in the parti-cipants’ native German tongue.

The members of the Pilegesh circle were the EgyptologistJacob (Hans) Polotsky (1906–1991), the philosopher and re-searcher of Gnosticism Hans Jonas (1903–1993), the classicistYochanan (Hans) Lewy (1901–1945), the physicist ShmuelSambursky (1900–1990), the political scientist GeorgeLichtheim (1912–1973), and last but not least Gershom Scho-lem (1897–1982), the founder of the academic study of Kabba-lah. Scholem stood at the center of the group and was the axisaround which the meetings gathered.

1 For more on the Pilegesh circle see Noam Zadoff, “‘Mit Witz im Ernstund Ernst im Witz:’ Der Jerusalemer PILEGESCH-Kreis,” in Jüdischer Al-manach: Humor, ed. Giesela Dachs (Jüdischer Verlag: Frankfurt am Main2004), 50–60; idem, “‘Portretim Bilti Dimyionyim:’ Hug Pilegesh – haverutvesatira ba-universita ha-ivrit,” Cathedra 126 (2008), 67–82.

Noam Zadoff68 ■


Scholem’s papers, preserved in the archives of the NationalLibrary in Jerusalem, contain much evidence of the meetingsof the Pilegesh group, including a poem booklet in German,written by Sambursky, entitled “Nicht imaginäre Portraits.”In this collection, members of the circle and their surroundingsare portrayed satirically. The poems imitate the style of Ger-man poets such as Goethe, Heine, Rilke, and Stefan George;and Gershom Scholem is one of the main protagonists. An-other type of document written within the circle consisted ofhumoristic speeches, composed in Scholem’s honor, deliveredat parties and celebrations held on special occasions in his life.

The original English text published here was probably read ata meeting of the Pilegesh circle on the occasion of Scholem’sfortieth birthday, on 5 December 1937. The author is Jacob Po-lotsky, who immigrated to Palestine in 1934 after working forthe Berlin Academy of Sciences on a German translation ofCoptic Manichean papyri. In Jerusalem, Polotsky taught Egyp-tology at the Hebrew University, where he met the other mem-bers of Pilegesh.

The text is a congratulatory letter by an imaginary secretaryor official of the British authorities in Palestine in honor ofScholem’s birthday. It reflects on the one hand Scholem’s cen-tral role in the Pilegesh circle and, on the other hand, the wayJewish intellectuals in Palestine perceived the Mandate.

The year 1937 was a crucial one in the history of the Britishrule over Palestine. In July, more than a year after the outbreakof the big Arab revolt, the Peel Committee recommended a ter-ritorial partition of Palestine between Jews and Arabs. The lastmonths of 1937 were marked by increasing tension and acts ofviolence between the three powers present in the land. In thisrespect, the text presented for the first time here can be re-garded as a political satire as well.

1 Members of thePilegesh circle:(from left to right)Yochanan (Hans) Lewy,Miriam andGeorg Lichtheim,Jacob Polotsky

“40 Gills of Scotch Whiskey” ■ 69


[Jacob Polotsky to Gershom Scholem, December 1937. TheNational Library Jerusalem, Department of Manuscripts andArchives, Gershom Scholem Archive (481599), File 16)]

December 1937

Dear Professor Scholem,

As you know, it has become a tradition with H[er] M[ajesty’]sGovernment to take a cordial interest in your person and toavail themselves of the occasion of important events in yourprivate life to express you their hearty feelings in the form ofletters of congratulation. In view of martial law prevailing inthis country H[is] E[xcellency] the High Commissioner feltthat the task – or rather the pleasure – of composing the pre-sent letter, on the occasion of your 40th anniversal [!], shouldbe devolved upon the F.O.C.2

Being-an eggs-on-bacon-eating Britisher not familiar withthe manners and customs of your race, I applied to a comradeof mine, stationed in Tel Aviv, who has acquired a most re-markable competence in matters relating to Judaism, for afew hints that might be useful for my purpose. The informa-tion supplied was to the effect that (i) your family-namemeans “peace” or “Hallo!” in English; (ii) that you are a pro-fessor of Cabbala; (iii) that the number 40 is supposed to be asort of sacred number.

To begin with your name, I feel somewhat embarrassed tostate that my profession prevents me from a wholehearted ap-preciation of the feelings which the notion of “peace” may beapt to evoke in civilian minds. More serious still is the dangerthat by the very fact of people walking about with a name likeyours, certain inhabitants of this country may be led to misgiv-ings as to the firm determination of H[er] M[ajesty’]s Govern-ment to stamp out terrorism. It has, therefore, been found ne-cessary to request you to use your name, as from to-day untilfurther notice, exclusively in its 2nd sense, viz. “Hallo!”, whichfortunately has a less direct bearing upon public security.

With regard to your research work I regret to say that I havenot been very successful. The word “Cabbala” not being fa-miliar to me – I looked it up in the Concise Oxford Dictionary

2 Probably the Foreign Office Commission.

Noam Zadoff70 ■


and found the meaning given as “Jewish oral tradition; mysticinterpretation, esoteric doctrine, occult lore”. I must confessthat this is completely Hebrew to me. Yet, you will permit anunsophisticated soldier to remark that “occult lore”, what-ever that may mean, can hardly be a subject that ought to betaught in a decent University.

Turning now to item (iii), I am glad to announce that mycomments thereupon will be of a more pleasant nature. Ourfirst idea was to capture to-day in the hills of Galilee, whencethe salvation of the world went forth, the offsprings of Ali Ba-ba’s gang and to present them to you for detention in your pre-mises. For technical reasons, however, this idea had to be gi-ven up. Instead I undertake herewith to consume this eveningin your honour 40 gills of Scotch Whisky, and remain withbest wishes

Yours faithfully…

PHOTO CREDITSThe Israeli National LibraryJerusalem, Department ofManuscripts and Archives,Gershom Scholem Archive.

“40 Gills of Scotch Whiskey” ■ 71


Julia Treindl

Immigration and Emigration:A Student Trip to Israel

What is a kibbutz? Upon our arrival in Israel, everyone in ourtwo courses on Israeli migration knew the answer to this ques-tion – or so we thought. Based on socialist and Zionist idealsand dependent mainly on agriculture, kibbutzim are collectivecommunities that play a crucial role in the ideology behind Is-rael’s past and present immigration. Furthermore, kibbutz lifeis simple, free of superficiality and material luxuries. Yet aswe entered Kibbutz Dalia in the Galilee, it occurred to us thatwe might have misinterpreted something about twenty-first-century kibbutzim. We stayed in cozy, wooden cottages com-plete with flat screen TVs, Wi-Fi, bathtubs, daily maid service,and a deluxe organic breakfast. There even was a good bar,where we celebrated New Year’s Eve along with some of theyounger kibbutznikim. This wasn’t the only time during ourone-week stay in Israel, from 29 December 2012 until 5 Janu-ary 2013, that we were amazed at how complex, diverse, andat times even paradoxical Israel’s present and past appeared.

At Dalia we had the chance to talk to Annette, a German,non-Jewish member who met her kibbutznik husband whilejourneying around the world. We learned about the crisis ofthe kibbutzim in the 1980s and their subsequent privatization.Although some elements of traditional kibbutz life, such aseducational institutions or collective decision making, still ex-ist, most of the inhabitants now work outside the communityand no longer identify with the kibbutz “spirit.” In addition,Annette spoke about her initial difficulties in reconciling hernew life in Israel with her German identity. For example, sheconsidered not having her children learn any German. Slowly,however, she found a way to deal with her two identities. Shetranslated into German memoirs of kibbutznikim who hadsurvived the Shoah and – much to the joy of many of those old-er kibbutznikim – even started putting up a Christmas tree.

On our visit to the Museum of Pioneer Agricultural Settle-ments on the grounds of Kibbutz Yifat, we examined the begin-nings of the kibbutzim. Our guide told us what day-to-day life

Julia Treindl72 ■


there had been like, sharing with us old songs as well as jokesabout kibbutznik promiscuity. At the early settlement of Zih-ron Ya’akov, with the grave of Baron Edmond de Rothschildand the Aaronsohn Museum, we traveled even farther back inthe history of twentieth-century Palestine.

At the Moshav Kinneret we met Gur Alroy, professor at theUniversity of Haifa. Speaking on the shore of the Sea of Gali-lee, with the Golan Heights as a backdrop, Alroy focused on along-neglected chapter of Jewish immigration: the history ofthe Yemenite Jews. Despite their own lack of farming experi-ence, Zionists of the First and Second Aliyot refused to hire ex-perienced Arab field workers. To provide Jewish labor, Yeme-nite Jews were brought to Palestine. In terms of wages andliving conditions, however, they were not treated as equals.Professor Alroy stressed the important role that research ongroups such as the Yemenites can play in deconstructingmyths about early Zionism.

Our next stop was Tel Aviv. In the Bauhaus Center we metGisela Dachs, long-time correspondent for the German weeklyDie Zeit, who spoke to us about how the integration of French,American, and Russian immigrants into Israeli society is af-fected by their media consumption. After a “Bauhaus tour”(Tel Aviv is home to more Bauhaus architecture than anyother city in the world), we faced some of the darker aspects ofmigration. The NGO “Hagar and Miriam – African Israeli Wo-men in Friendship and Motherhood” had arranged for us tospeak to a man from the Congo and a young mother from Eri-trea. Despite having fled to Israel, these immigrants have notreceived refugee status. Due to their desperate situation, someimmigrants turn to crime, alcoholism, and drugs. By magnify-ing individual crimes perpetrated by refugees, however, themedia facilitates discrimination against African refugees – inpolitics and in daily life.

In a rather gloomy mood, we made our way to Jerusalem. Atthe Leo Baeck Institute and the Hebrew University of Jerusa-lem we had the opportunity to meet some of Israel’s most pro-minent intellectuals. The controversial Moshe Zimmermannspoke about how the memory of the Holocaust serves to createa common Israeli identity. Uzi Rebhun, one of Israel’s leadingdemographers, shared his findings on the current transforma-tion of Israel’s population and his prognoses regarding futuredemographic developments. Historian Yfaat Weiss discussedwhether Israel’s society should be defined as “multicultural,”

Immigration and Emigration ■ 73


highlighting several approaches to characterizing the sociopo-litical structures in the country.

Intriguing as well as entertaining was an encounter with re-nowned writer Eli Amir, who spoke to us about the Jews fromIraq. He vividly depicted urban life in Baghdad, the beginningsof Jewish persecution during the 1940s, and the eventual immi-gration of all Iraqi Jews to Israel. He stressed the Jewish contri-butions to Iraq’s economy, culture, and politics. Like many Ira-qi immigrants, Amir himself found the standard of life in newlyfounded Israel inferior to life in the land of his birth. In his opi-nion, education was the crucial factor in the success of Iraqi in-tegration into Israeli society. We were intrigued by Amir’scharm and his fascinating stories, but also by the way he under-stood his own identity as that of a Jewish Arab living in Israel.

To explore the unique atmosphere of Jerusalem, we joined anentertaining tour through the “Yekke” neighborhood of Reha-vya and the nearby orthodox quarter Nachlaot. We learnedabout the so-called “Schlafstunde,” a daily period of quiet ob-served by German immigrants, and stumbled upon the colorfulbook boxes in which orthodox Jews bury religious books. Wealso spent time in Jerusalem’s historic center, discovering theOld City and visiting the Western Wall and the Church of theHoly Sepulchre. We haggled in the Souk, indulged in culinarydiversity, and tried to grasp Jerusalem’s greatness.

The impressive places we visited, the fascinating people wemet, and the great discussions we had on this trip will doubt-less remain one of our most rewarding experiences as studentsof history. Our heartfelt thanks go to Michael Brenner and Mir-iam Zadoff for their great organization and commitment.Without them we might have never found out what a kibbutzreally is.

1 Our student groupwith professorMichael Brenner,Mirjam Zadoff,Noam Zadoff andGur Alroey(Haifa University).

PHOTO CREDITS1 Privat.

Julia Treindl74 ■


Veronika Nickel, Hannes Pichler, Esther Pütz,and Josef Prackwieser

„Jerusalem and the Holy Land.Perception and remembrance of Jews andChristians in the Middle Ages“

Impressions from a Fieldtrip to Jerusalem and the North ofIsrael with Professor Eva Haverkamp, 18–27 November 2012

In the course of our advanced seminar, under the guidance ofProfessor Eva Haverkamp, on the different perceptions andmemories of medieval Jerusalem among Jews and Christians,16 participants elaborated on an array of questions concerningJerusalem’s role in Jewish and Christian religious tradition.How was Jerusalem described in pilgrim accounts? How wasits holiness reflected in artistic, monumental, and liturgicaltestimonies? And above all, how did these two groups refer toeach other?

On our excursion to Israel, an integral part of the seminar,we were able to address these questions vividly and in detail.We visited Jerusalem, Masada, and the north of Israel. In dis-cussions featuring occasional guest lecturers and, most impor-tantly, eight student presentations, we intensively studied bib-lical and medieval sources relevant to each destination. Oftenthese discussions went on until late in the night.

On 18 November 2012 we arrived in Tel Aviv. It was the be-ginning of a journey not just to the medieval crusaders andMamluks, but also to the First and Second Temple Period, theHellenistic Era, the Roman occupation, and of course also tomodern Israel, with all its vibrant cultural aspects. The largestack of medieval sources which accompanied us – a thickbook quickly losing its shape from frequent use – was morethan just an essential tool for broadening our knowledge aboutmedieval thought. Writings by Benjamin of Tudela, Felix Fabri,and Obadiah of Bertinoro, Ernoul’s chronicle, and many othertexts were transformed from printed letters into living, unfor-gettable guides and companions on our journey through history

On our first day, we visited the Israel Museum, where weplunged into more than 2000 years of the Holy Land’s narra-

Jerusalem and the Holy Land ■ 75


tive. From manuscripts such as the Dead Sea Scrolls or theAleppo Codex to archeological exhibits and city models (e.g.the reconstruction of Jerusalem in the Second Temple Period),we were able to study the topography and the settlement strataof Jerusalem, discovering the historical variety and richness ofthe city. A special exhibition on the past and present of Chassi-dic Jewry rounded out our visit.

In the afternoon, we visited the Mount Scopus Campus ofthe Hebrew University. Israel Yuval, director of the ScholionResearch Center, and Reuven Amitai, dean of the Faculty ofHumanities, gave us a warm welcome and an overview of thedevelopment of university studies over the last decades.

In the following days we explored the ancient and medievalsights of Jerusalem. A guided tour through the Western Walltunnel revealed the monumental size of the Second Temple(of which the present-day wall constitutes a mere fraction) andintroduced us to the architecture and its several phases. Wevisited the excavations at the “City of David,” the oldestsettled part of the city, descended to the Valley of Kidron andits numerous tombs, and inspected the unique water supplysystem built by King Hezekiah in the eighth century BCE tobring water from the Gihon spring to the Pool of Siloam. Visitsto the holiest places of Christendom, such as the Church of theHoly Sepulchre, the Dormition Abbey on Mount Zion, the ViaDolorosa, and the Garden of Gethsemane, showed us onceagain Jerusalem’s importance as a religious city.

One of the highlights of our journey was the massive fortressof Masada. “As the sun rose, we found ourselves immersed inthe world of 74 CE and the last days of the Jewish revolt againstthe Romans. Together with the overwhelming surroundings ofthe Judean Desert and the Dead Sea, the archeological remainsnot only evoked autarkic Jewish life on top of the desert hill,but also linked us seamlessly with the historical events. Read-ing Josephus’ De bello iudaico and the medieval account of Jo-sippon while wandering along the antique walls of palaces andhousing units, we gained an impression of what life must havebeen like when collective suicide was considered a betterchoice than being held captive by the Romans.” (Hannes Pich-ler, seminar participant and coauthor of this report.)

The last day of our journey we spent in the north of Israel.The ancient synagogues of Beit Alfa, Sepphoris and Capernaumand the necropolis in the Bet She’arim National Park im-pressed us with mosaics and relics of medieval Jewish spaces

Veronika Nickel, Hannes Pichler, Esther Pütz, and Josef Prackwieser76 ■


and contemporary cultural identity. We could, for example,compare different symbolic illustrations of the Temple andthe binding of Isaac. Discussing funeral rituals at Bet She’arimmade us realize that Jewish communities were deeply influ-enced by their surroundings. ‘I especially enjoyed the widerange of periods covered on our study trip, from the First andSecond Temple up to the Middle Ages. Our visit to the excava-tions of Beit Alfa and Sepphoris was very impressive, particu-larly because of the interesting explanations by Dr. Shalev-Eyni, art historian at the Hebrew University. Analyzing themosaics of the two synagogues presented us with the opportu-nity to discuss the impact of the Jewish-Christian theologicaldispute on art in the fourth and sixth centuries.’ (SophiaSchmitt, seminar participant.)

The beautiful landscape of green plains and mountains fram-ing the Sea of Galilee on our last day in Israel fittingly con-cluded a week full of impressions and academic input, a weekof enrichment not only for our studies, but also for our perso-nal growth.

1 Our student groupwith Professor IsraelYuval (HrebrewUniversity) and ProfessorEva Haverkamp on theMount Scopus Campus.

PHOTO CREDITS1 Privat.

Jerusalem and the Holy Land ■ 77


NEWSLETTER

Faculty Notes /Alumni Today

Recent Events

Friends of the Institute

FACULTY NOTES /ALUMNI TODAY

In December Professor Michael Brennerwas elected a member of the AccademiaNazionale Virgiliana di Science Letteree Arti in Mantua.

Michael Brenner will take a leave of ab-sence from Munich and teach at Ameri-can University in Washington, D.C., be-tween fall 2013 and spring 2015 as thefirst Seymour and Lillian AbensohnChair in Israel Studies and as director ofAmerican University’s Center for IsraelStudies. He will be replaced during thistime by Professor Alan Steinweis fromthe University of Vermont, one of theleading scholars in the field of Holocaustand Jewish Studies. Prof. Steinweis willbe introduced in more detail in our nextedition.

In the coming spring term the Institutewill host two guests from Israel: In Apriland May, Prof. emerita Shulamit Volk-ov (Tel-Aviv) will teach a few sessionsof Professor Brenner’s lecture class.

On 8 July Prof. Volkov will also presentthe Munich History Lecture entitled:‘Vom Nutzen und Nachteil der Jü-dischen Geschichte.’

In June, Prof. emerita Itta Shedletzky(Jerusalem) will teach on Jewish litera-ture, its characteristics and its historyduring the Nazi period. Prof. Shedletzkywill be in Germany as the first VisitingProfessor of the newly founded Jakob-Fugger-Zentrum (JFZ) – Research Centerfor Transnational Studies at AugsburgUniversity.

The Institute congratulates ProfessorYfaat Weiss on receiving the HannahArendt Award for Political Thought.“Through her research,” the jury wrotein its decision, “Weiss opens new per-spectives for thinking about the coexis-tence of ethnic groups and minorities inIsrael.” From 1997 to 1999 Yfaat Weisswas assistant professor at the Institute.Today she is Professor at the HebrewUniversity, Jerusalem.

Last fall Dr. Tobias Grill took up a post-doc position in the new LMU postgradu-ate program of East and Southeast Eur-opean Studies. After earning his Ph.D.at the Institute in 2009, Grill worked asassistant professor with Professor Mi-chael Wolffsohn at the University of theArmed Forces. In his new position,funded by the Excellence Initiative, heteaches and researches in the field ofEastern European Jewish History.

Newsletter78 ■

In the past winter semester the Institutehad three graduates in the field of Mod-ern Jewish History. Magdalena WròbelBloom earned her Ph.D. with a disserta-tion on “Cross-Border Social Networksand the Jewish Migration from Polandto Palestine, 1924–1928;” Oren Os-terer’s dissertation bears the title “Israelin the East German Press;” and Nìels Eg-gerz wrote a Master thesis entitled“Moshe Chayim Luzzatto: Perceptionsand Self-Perception.” We congratulateall three and wish them all the best.

Katharina Hey, Ph.D. student and re-search assistant at the Institute, will re-ceive funding from the History Depart-ment in the coming summer semesterto assist Prof. Noam Zadoff in preparingan application for an Emmy NoetherYoung Researcher Group award dedi-cated to “Jewish Intellectuals and the Is-raeli-Arab Conflict.”

Dr. Anna Menny, who completed herdissertation last year at the Institute,has been working since October 2012 atthe Hamburg Institute for the History ofthe German Jews. She is responsible fora new project created to digitalize andmake available online key documents ofGerman-Jewish history.

Dr. Andrea Sinn, lecturer at the Insti-tute, is curating an exhibit on Jewish lifein Augsburg at the Jewish Culture Mu-seum Augsburg-Swabia. On 17 April, at7 pm, the exhibit “Jewish Perspectivesin the Land of the Perpetrators? Between

‘Reparations’ and ‘Economic Miracle’1950–1969” will open its doors. It runsuntil 15 September of this year.

Books Published

Last fall marked the publication of thevolume History of the Jews in Germanyfrom 1945 to the Present: Politics, Cul-ture, and Society (in German), edited byMichael Brenner. The authors are Nor-bert Frei, Constantin Goschler, Dan Di-ner, Tamar Lewinsky, Atina Grossman,Yfaat Weiss, Lena Gorelik, AnthonyKauders, and Michael Brenner.

Likewise edited by Michael Brenner, incooperation with Maximilian Strnad, isThe Holocaust in German-languageHistoriography: Review and Perspec-tives: 12th Dachau Symposia on Con-temporary History (in German). The vo-lume appeared last fall with Wallstein.

In November Assistant Prof. MirjamZadoff’s dissertation appeared in Eng-lish with Pennsylvania University Pressas Next Year in Marienbad: The LostWorlds of Jewish Spa Culture.

Edited by Prof. Noam Zadoff, the corre-spondence between Gershom Scholemand his student Joseph Weiss, the scho-lar of Hassidism, appeared last fall in He-brew (Gershom Scholem ve-JosephWeiss. Mikhtawim 1948–1964. Jerusa-lem: Carmel 2012). On 6 January the vo-lume was presented to a large audienceat the Leo Baeck Institute, Jerusalem. In

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addition to the editor, the speakers in-cluded Professor Ada Rapoport-Albert(London), Professor Moshe Idel (Jerusa-lem), and Dr. Oded Irshai (Jerusalem).

Last fall also saw the publication of Dr.Martina Niedhammer’s dissertation.Merely “Money Emancipation?” Loyal-ties and Social Worlds of the WealthyJewish Bourgeoisie in Prague 1800–1867 (in German) appeared with Van-denhoeck & Rupprecht as volume twoof a series on “Religious Cultures inModern Europe.” On 6 February thebook and the newly founded series werepresented to the public in the Histor-isches Kolleg. The work received the2013 Georg R. Schroubek DissertationPrize. Our warmest congratulations goto Dr. Niedhammer.

RECENT EVENTS

On 21 October 2012 a large crowd at-tended the book presentation, hosted by

the Jewish Community of Munich, ofHistory of the Jews in Germany from1945 to the Present. Professor MichaelBrenner, Professor Norbert Frei (Jena),Dr. Rachel Salamander, and the directorof the Cultural Center of the JewishCommunity discussed how Jewish lifein Germany has developed since 1945.

For the third Yerushalmi Lecture, on 12December 2012, we welcomed from Jer-usalem Prof. Steven Aschheim, whospoke about “Zionism and Europe.”

On January 15 the inaugural lectures ofAllianz Visiting Professors Tülay Artan(Istanbul) and Aron Rodrigue (Stanford)took place. Professor Artan, whose guestprofessorship is affiliated with the Insti-tute for the Near and Middle East, spokeabout “The Privy Chamber of Ahmed IIIand the Celestial Lights in Praise of theBest of Creation.” The lecture of Profes-sor Rodrigue, guest professor at the In-stitute of Jewish History and Culture,was titled “From Ottoman Empire toGreece: The Jews of Salonica 1912–1913.” Professor Bernd Huber, presi-dent of the LMU, and Professor Wolf-gang Ischinger, chief representative ofthe Allianz SE for government relationsand former German ambassador to theUSA, delivered welcoming addresses.

On 29 January Allianz Visiting Profes-sor Aron Rodrigue gave the annual lec-ture of the Foundation for Jewish His-tory and Culture, at the Jewish Com-munity Center of Munich, on “The Is-

Norbert Frei, Rachel Salamander, Michael Brenner,Ellen Presser (left to right).

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land of Roses: Rhodes, the Holocaustand Sephardi Memory.” Welcoming re-marks came from the consul general ofGreece, Sofia Grammata, and the consulgeneral of Italy, Filippo Scammacca delMurgo.

One day after the Israeli elections, theInstitute of Jewish History and Culturehosted Israeli consul general Tibor Sha-lev-Schlosser for a discussion with stu-dents and the Friends of the Instituteabout “Israel after the Elections.” Theconsul general elucidated the concernsof Israelis before the elections and of-fered preliminary thoughts on the impli-cations of the election results.

Save the Date

April 24Professor Paula Fass(Berkeley): “Chil-dren of the Holo-caust: Some Perso-nal Reflections”The daughter of twovictims of the Shoahwho spent years in the Lodz Ghetto, andthen in various concentrations camps,Paula Fass was the child of a second fa-mily formed after the war in Hannover.After years as a professor of history atBerkeley, she felt impelled to write aboutthis ‘historical’ experience. In Inheritingthe Holocaust she puts her memory andher skills as a researcher to the test as ahistorian and as a daughter, seeking tofind out more about her parents past andtrying to find the basis for her own needto become a historian. Paula Fass will re-flect on this process of writing as a mem-ber of the second generation.Paula S. Fass is the Margaret Byrne Pro-fessor of History at the University of Ca-lifornia at Berkeley, where she hastaught for the past thirty-six years. Since2010, she has also been DistinguishedScholar in Residence at Rutgers Univer-sity, New Brunswick. Trained as a socialand cultural historian of the UnitedStates at Columbia University, she hasover the last decade been active in devel-oping the field of children’s history andworked to make this an interdisciplin-ary field with a global perspective. Shewas the President of the Society of the

Italian consul general Filippo Scammacca delMurgo, Michael Brenner, Aron Rodrigue, Greekconsul general Sofia Grammata, and Nikolaj G.Kiessling of the Foundation for Jewish History andCulture (left to right).

Israeli consulgeneral TiborShalev-Schlosser

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History of Children and Youth, whichshe helped to found, from 2007–2009.The author of Children of a New World:Society, Culture, and Globalization(2007) and many other books, she is amember of the American PhilosophicalSociety, and has an honorary Doctor ofPhilosophy Degree from Linkoping Uni-versity in Sweden.In cooperation with the Center of Ad-vanced Studies at LMU.

May 16Nicholas Stavroula-kis (Hania/Crete):“Etz Hayyim: De-struction and Re-construction of a Sy-nagogue on Crete”Nicholas Stavroula-kis was educated in the United Kingdomand the United States (University of Mi-chigan) and did his postgraduate workfor his doctorate at the Hebrew Univer-sity in Jerusalem. He was instrumentalin creating a number of university pro-grams in Greece, Italy, and Turkey andlectures frequently in Byzantine and Ot-toman history and art. He founded andwas director of the Jewish Museum ofGreece in Athens from 1973 until 1994.He established the new Jewish Museumof Thessaloniki and was its curatorial ad-visor from 1997 until 2005. In 1995 heundertook the restoration of the EtzHayyim Synagogue in Hania/Crete.In this lecture he will tell about the re-construction of the only synagogue inCrete today and its history.

In cooperation with the Consulate Gen-eral of Greece and the Friends of the In-stitute of Jewish History and Culture.

June 13Prof. Derek Penslar(Oxford/Toronto):“How Jews BecameIsraelis”Throughout most ofits history Zionismhas been as much arevolutionarymovement as a national one. The Zionistrevolution was part of the great transfor-mative movements of the twentieth cen-tury yet had distinct features. It sought totransform the Jews from a people alwayson the move to one rooted in their an-cient homeland, from a nation of mer-chants to one of farmers and laborers;from a multi-lingual civilization into anew Hebraic one; from timid Jacob to abrave and militant David. This lecturetells the story of the Zionist revolution,its fulfillment in the creation of the stateof Israel in 1948 and the mass immigra-tion of the 1950s, and its gradual declineever since.

Derek Penslar is Stanley Lewis Professorof Israel Studies at the University of Ox-ford and holds the Samuel J. Zacks Chairin Jewish History at the University ofToronto. He is one of the leading expertson the history of Zionism and Israel. In2011 he was made a Fellow of the RoyalSociety of Canada. Among his books areZionism and Technocracy: The Engi-

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neering of Jewish Settlement in Pales-tine, 1870–1918 (1991), Shylock’s Chil-dren: Economics and Jewish Identity inModern Europe (2001), Israel in History:The Jewish State in Comparative Per-spective (2006), and most recently TheOrigins of Israel 1882–1948: A Docu-mentary History (2011).In cooperation with the LMU Instituteof History of Science.

June 18This year’s ScholemAleichem Lecture,“Yiddishists vs. He-braists: The Lan-guage Feud in EastEuropean Jewry” (inYiddish), will be de-livered by DavidFishman, professor of Jewish History atThe Jewish Theological Seminary inNew York.At the turn of the 20th century, East Eur-opean Jews were engulfed in an intenseideological battle over the question oflanguage. Which language should be themedium for Jewish literature, scholar-ship, and communal life: Hebrew, Yid-dish, or Russian? While hard-core Zio-nists were “Hebraists” and adherents ofthe Jewish socialist Bund were “Yiddish-ists,” many Jewish intellectuals arguedfor bilingualism and even tri-lingualismin Jewish life. The landmark event inthis debate was the 1908 Czernowitzconference for the Yiddish language,which declared Yiddish a Jewish na-tional language – an act that provoked

great controversy. After Czernowitz, theHebrew national poet H.N. Bialik ceasedwriting in Yiddish, and the Yiddish clas-sic I.L. Peretz no longer wrote in He-brew. We will explore this debate andconsider its long-term consequences.Professor Fishman is the author of nu-merous books and articles on the historyand culture of East European Jewry. Hisbooks include Russia’s First ModernJews and The Rise of Modern YiddishCulture. He directs the Jewish ArchivalSurvey of the Project Judaica in Moscow,which publishes guides to Jewish archi-val materials in the former Soviet Union.In cooperation with the Cultural Centerof the Jewish Community of Munich.

June 20–21, 2013International Conference:Jews and Muslims in the Russian Em-pire and the Soviet Union, HistorischesKolleg, Munich

Preliminary Program

Michael Brenner and Martin Schulze Wessel(LMU, Munich): Opening remarks

Michael Stanislawski (Columbia University,New York): The Jewish and Muslim Enlighten-ments: A Comparison

Yochanan Petrovsky-Shtern (Northwestern Uni-versity, Evanston): Major trends in the most re-cent historiography covering Muslims and Jewsin Russia and the Soviet Union

Panel I:Jews and Muslims and their encounter with theImperial and Soviet States

Kelly O’Neill (Harvard University, Cambridge):Islamic endowments and the re-making of Crim-ean Lands

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Vladimir Levin (Hebrew University, Jerusalem):Common Problems, different solutions. Jewishand Muslims Politics in late Imperial Russia

Franziska Davies (LMU, Munich): Jews and Mus-lims as soldiers of the Tsar: The army and thechallenge of difference

David Schick (LMU, Munich): The Jews in theeconomic policy of the Russian Empire: The ex-ample of Odessa (1855–1894)

Panel II:The making of national and confessional identi-ties

Ellie Schainker (Emory University, Atlanta): Aview of the Confessional State from Below: Con-verts from Judaism and Confessional Choice inNineteenth-Century Imperial Russia

Michael Khodarkovsky (Loyola University, Chi-cago): Islamic identity in late Imperial Russia

David E. Fishman (Jewish Theological Seminary,New York): Yiddish and the Formation of a Secu-lar Jewish National identity in Czarist Russia

Adeeb Khalid (Carleton College, Minnesota):From Muslim Anticlericalism to Soviet Atheism:The Uzbek intelligentsia through the Revolution,1917–1929

Panel III:Depicting difference. Visual and discursive repre-sentations of Jews and Muslims in late imperialRussia and the early Soviet Union

Vladimir Bobrovnikov (Institute for OrientalStudies, Moscow): Constructing Religious Mino-rities in the Russian Caucasus, 1860s-1920s:“Aliens’” Clergy and Congregations of Dagestani“Native” Muslims and Jews

Yvonne Kleinmann (University of Leipzig): ThePower of Documentation: Ethnographic Repre-sentations of Jews and Muslims in the late Rus-sian Empire

Stefan Wiese (Humboldt University, Berlin): Jewsand Muslims in the Pogrom Narratives of 1905

David Shneer (University of Colorado, Boulder):Photographing the New Soviet Jew

June 27Yochanan Petrovs-ky-Shtern (North-western University):“Lenin’s JewishQuestion”Why have Russianracists attempted toportray Lenin as aJew, and why did Lenin approach theJewish question as he did? In his presen-tation, Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern willexamine Lenin’s controversial back-ground, in particular the now-documen-ted fact that Lenin had a maternal Jewishgreat-grandfather named Moshko Blank.The newest archival discoveries aboutMoshko Blank and Blank’s conversionto Christianity shed light on a tantaliz-ing question: why Soviet Communistssought to suppress any discussion of Le-nin’s Jewishness. Explore the fate ofJews in the Russian empire and theUSSR through the prism of the posthu-mous fate of Lenin’s great-grandfather.Yochanan Petrovsky-Shtern is theCrown Family Professor of Jewish Stu-dies and a Professor of Jewish History.He holds a Ph.D. in Modern Jewish His-tory from Brandeis University (2001)and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literaturefrom Moscow University (1988). He hasreceived several grants and awards andhas been visiting professor at multipleinstitutions in Israel, USA, and Europe.He has been appointed a Fulbright Spe-cialist on Eastern Europe; a Fellow atthe Harvard Ukrainian Research Insti-tute; and a Visiting Professor at the Free

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Ukrainian University in Munich. Hehas published several books, includingJews in the Russian Army, 1827–1917:Drafted into Modernity (2008); TheAnti-Imperial Choice (2009, winner ofthe American Association of UkrainianStudies book award); and Lenin’s JewishQuestion (2010). He has finished a newbook, The Golden-Age Shtetl, and to-gether with his colleague Dean Bell isworking on a documentary history ofthe Jews in early Modern World, 1450–1750.In cooperation with the European JanuszKorczak Academy.

July 17Leora Batnitzky(Princeton): “HowJudaism Became aReligion”Whether religion isa private matter orpublic concern is acentral question for faith traditions intoday’s world. But this question is olderthan it may seem from contemporarydebates. This lecture suggests that thequestion of religion’s private or publicstatus has driven modern Jewishthought since the eighteenth century.Ever since the Enlightenment, Jewishthinkers have debated whether and howJudaism – largely a religion of practiceand public adherence to law — can fitinto a modern, Protestant conception ofreligion as an individual and privatematter of belief or faith. The clash be-tween the modern category of religion

and Judaism is responsible for much ofthe tension in modern Jewish thoughtand also offers an important case studyof the relationship between religion, pol-itics, and the modern nation state.Leora Batnitzky is Professor and Chairin the Department at Princeton Univer-sity, where she also directs Princeton’sTikvah Project on Jewish Thought. Sheis the author of three books: Idolatryand Representation: The Philosophy ofFranz Rosenzweig Reconsidered (Prin-ceton 2000); Leo Strauss and EmmanuelLevinas: Philosophy and the Politics ofRevelation (Cambridge 2006); and HowJudaism Became a Religion: An Intro-duction to Modern Jewish Thought(Princeton, 2011); as well as numerousarticles and book chapters. Her currentresearch focuses on historical and philo-sophical intersections between modernlegal theory (analytic and continental)and modern religious thought (Jewishand Christian).In cooperation with the InternationalResearch Group “Religious Cultures in19th and 20th Century Europe.”

In the field of Medieval Jewish historythe Institute will host the followingguests in the summer of 2013: Prof.Ivan Marcus (Yale University), Prof.Sarah Strousma (Hebrew University ofJerusalem) und Prof. Shmuel Shepkaro(University of Oklahoma).

“For Things Have No Memory... Materi-al Tradition and Jewish Memory” – In2013 the Institute, in cooperation with

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the Jewish Museum Hohenems andUniversities Basel, Salzburg, Vienna,and Zurich, is again organizing the Eur-opean Summer University for JewishStudies in Hohenems. How are knowl-edge, traditions, and a sense of meaningpassed down through the generations?What role does material tradition playin a diaspora culture marked by mobi-lity, transnationalism, and violent his-torical ruptures? How do objects becomebearers of narrative? Who preservesthem and how are they interpreted?How are they passed on, forgotten, pre-served, and rediscovered? From 21 to 26July summer university participantswill delve into these and other topics.Everyday objects and ritual parapherna-lia, books, letters, photographs, tomb-stones, and memorabilia – all thesethings have a history in which indivi-dual and collective experiences, self-per-ceptions and relationships run together.The physical form of memory representsboth a historical trail and ideational con-struction. Whether dealing with familyheirlooms and sentimental souvenirs,institutions such as museums, libraries,and archives historical images, or the in-terpretive performance of the historical,cultural, linguistic, and religioussciences, we are constantly confrontedby images of history and formulations ofidentity.

PROGRAM

July 21

Erik Petry (Basel): Collective Jewish memory –and why it may not exist

Alfred Bodenheimer (Basel): Remember whatAmalek did unto thee! On Jewish forgetting

Aleida Assmann (Konstanz): Do things havememory?

July 22

Mirjam Zadoff (Munich): Aryanization of every-day life, or Why things have no memory

Tamar Lewinsky (Basel): The Jewish tradition ofcompilation and research in Eastern Europe (Dub-now, Anski, and the aftermath)

Klaus Davidowicz (Vienna): Loss of things andthe transformation of the Jewish experience inpopular cinema

Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (New York/War-saw): The Jewish Museum in Warsaw

July 23

Tamar El-Or (Jerusalem/Zurich): Endurance offorms and the emergence of style in Israel

Stefan Schreiner (Tübingen): Vilna’s Jewish Li-braries

Armin Eidherr (Salzburg): Books, Images, Lights –Objects and Memory and Stefan Zweig: The Jew-ish cultural-historical point of view

July 24

Felicitas Heimann-Jelinek (Vienna): Judaica – In-troduction to the narrative of objects

Eva Haverkamp (Munich): Medieval manuscripts

Daniela Schmid (Vienna): Objects of Supersti-tion – Jewish amulets past and present

Emile Schrijver (Amsterdam): Written traces:Genisoth, fragments, and other forms of tradition

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July 25

Albert Lichtblau (Salzburg): Grasping memory:The power of the material

Deborah Jacobs (Basel): Representation and theuse of images in Judaism

Joachim Schloer (Southampton): To take and/orto leave: things and emigration

26. July

Hanno Loewy: Ambiguity of objects in museumcontexts

Rabbi Michel Bollag: Parashat haShawuaThe following courses will meet daily:

Sabina Bossert (Basel): Judaica for beginners

Felicitas Heimann-Jelinek (Vienna): AdvancedJudaicaMichael Studemund-Halevy (Hamburg): Tomb-stones

Ittai Tamari (Munich): ManuscriptsAdditional information can be found at the Insti-tute homepage and via Summer University coor-dinator Evita Wiecki M.A. ([email protected]).

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FRIENDS OF THE INSTITUTE

Annual MeetingThe annual meeting of the Friends of theInstitute took place on 29 January in themedia room of the Jewish CommunityCenter.The meeting was led by the new chair-man of the Friends, Professor KlausSchultz. Board members Dr. AndreaSinn und Dr. Ernst-Peter Wieckenbergwere also in attendance. The usual agen-da of items was discussed, with the fo-cus on Hans Theismann’s report on thebalance of accounts and the auditor’s re-port by Hans Dieter Schell. Both reportswere, as in the previous years, very fa-vorable; the precise work of the newtreasurer, Andrea Sinn, was roundlypraised. The members in attendanceunanimously relieved the board of liabi-lity for the past year, with the boardmembers abstaining. In the comingyear, recruiting new members will re-main a goal to be pursued actively.Professor Michael Brenner und ProfessorEva Haverkamp reported on programhighlights of the past year and gave a pre-view of plans for the coming year.Klaus Schultz offered to organize, to-wards the end of the coming summer se-mester, an additional evening for theFriends in which he and Jens MalteFischer would speak about “RichardWagner and the contradictions of hischaracter as an artist and social actor.”The idea was warmly received. TheFriends will be informed in advance of

the proposed evening, which is tenta-tively planned for mid-July.The annual meeting continued with thepresentation of the three new UlpanScholarship recipients: the Leon andLola Teicher Scholarship, establishedby Dr. Eli, Samy, and Maximilan Tei-cher, went to Laura Sophie Stadler; theGünther Anders Scholarship, estab-lished by Dr. Wolfgang Beck, went to So-phia Schmitt; recipient of the Gerald D.Feldman Scholarship, established bythe Friends of the Institute, was Cinder-ella Petz.

The Max and Fila Gonsenheimer Scho-larship for Study in Israel, establishedthis year by Ron Jakubowicz, went toKatharina Hey, doctoral student at theInstitute.

In conclusion, Assistant Professor Mir-jam Zadoff presented to the authors ofthe six best term papers in 2012 bookprizes sponsored by the Friends. Lily Ma-ier wrote about “Self-perception andIdentity in Oneg Shabbat: Political, Reli-gious, and Ideological Background” forthe course “The Holocaust – the Shoah:History – Perspectives – Images” (Mir-jam Zadoff). Franziska Sonner examinedin her paper the topic “Political Zion-ism – From a Visionary’s Dream to Rea-lity?” in the course “West Meets East,East Meets West: Interaction betweenJews in the Occident and Jews in the Ori-ent” (Julie Grimmeisen). Tonio Weickerdealt with “Israel As Melting Pot: Mo-saic or Hybrid Society? An Analysis of

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Transformative Processes in Israeli So-ciety As Seen in the Russian-Jewish Im-migration Since the Collapse of the So-viet Union” in the course “Israel:Society, Culture, and Politics” (NoamZadoff). Sören Heitkamp wrote his paperon “Tendencies of Israeli Society As Seenthrough Ari Folman’s Waltz with Bashirand Joseph Cedar’s Beaufort” in thecourse “Writing about One’s Self: Auto-biographies and Source Texts of ModernJewish History” (Mirjam Zadoff). Writ-ten for the course “With God, Kaiser,and Bundeskanzler: Jews in the DanubeMonarchy and Both Austrian Republics”

(Mirjam Zadoff) Liza Soutschek’s paper bore the title “Between Past and Future –Life in Austria’s Jewish DP Camps. Christina Stangl wrote about “The Mes-sage of the Jewish Story of Amram and the Question As to Whether It Was Bor-rowed from the Christian Emmeram Le-gend” in the course “Jews in the Medie-val Cities on the Rhine and the Danube” (Eva Haverkamp).

K. S.

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Authors

Azriel Bermantwas awarded his PhD from University College London in Janu-ary 2012. Between 1998 and 2006, Bermant worked as a writer,editor, and translator for the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairsin Jerusalem. He is now a research associate in the field ofArms Control at the Institute for National Security Studies(INSS), Tel Aviv University.

Samuel Ghiles-Meilhacearned his PhD in sociology at the Ecole des hautes études ensciences sociales in Paris. He wrote his dissertation on theConseil représentatif des institutions juives de France (CRIF),the Jewish political umbrella organization. He teaches at theInstitute of Political Sciences in Paris and Lille and is theauthor of Le CRIF 1943 à nos jours: De la Résistance juive à latentation du lobby (Paris: Robert Laffont, 2011).

Rory Milleris Director of Middle East & Mediterranean Studies at King’sCollege London. His most recent book, Inglorious Disarray:Europe, Israel and the Palestinians since 1967, was publishedin 2011.

Oren Ostererstudied Media and Politics at Bonn University. In October2012 he submitted his dissertation on “Israel’s image in news-papers of the GDR” at Munich University.

Colin Shindleris professor emeritus at the School of Oriental and African Stu-dies, University of London. His book Israel and the EuropeanLeft was published by Bloomsbury last year.

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Jakub Tyszkiewicz

is professor at the University of Wrocé aw, Poland, and was avisiting professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago(1997), the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (2007–2009)and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2011). Recently hecoauthored Historia Powszechna. Wiek XX (Warszawa: Wy-dawnictwo Naukowe, 2010) and Polityka Stanów Zjednoczo-nych wobec Polski w dobie prezydentury Johna F. Kennedy’e-go (Wrocé aw: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocé awskiego,2011).

Noam Zadoffholds the Ben Gurion Guest Chair for Israel and Near-EasternStudies at the University of Heidelberg and the Hochschulefür Jüdische Studien Heidelberg. He is the editor of GershomScholem and Joseph Weiss: Correspondence 1948–1964 [in He-brew] (Jerusalem: Carmel, 2012). His book From Berlin to Jeru-salem and Back: Gershom Scholem between Israel and Ger-many [in Hebrew](Jerusalem: Carmel) is forthcoming.

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THE MUNICH JOURNALOF JEWISHHISTORY ANDCULTURE

(Münchner Beiträge zur JüdischenGeschichte und Kultur)

Overview of past issues(titles translated from German)

1/2007Yfaat Weiss on Lea Goldberg –Jews in Postwar Germany

2/2007The Historical Figure of Gershom Scholem –Jürgen Habermas, David A. Rees, Itta Shedletzky,Lina Barouch, Mirjam Triendl-Zadoff, Noam Zadoff,and Giulio Busi

1/2008Munich Portraits: Three Jewish Biographies –Christian Ude on Kurt Eisner,Hans-Jochen Vogel on Lion Feuchtwanger,Rachel Salamander on Gerty Spies

2/2008Judaism and Islam –John M. Efron, Richard I. Cohen,and Carlos Fraenkel

1/2009Germany in Israel / Israel in Germany –Dan Laor, Anja Siegemund, Christian Kraft, Andrea Livnat,Gisela Dachs, Chaim Be’er, and Julie Grimmeisen

2/2009The Portative Fatherland — Hans Magnus Enzensberger,Rahel E. Feilchenfeldt, Andreas B. Kilcher, Michael Krüger,Thomas Meyer, David B. Ruderman, Ittai J. Tamari,Ernst-Peter Wieckenberg, and Reinhard Wittmann

1/2010A German-Jewish Post-War Geography –Tobias Freimüller, Katharina Friedla, Anne Gemeinhardt,Monika Halbinger, Tamar Lewinsky, Hendrik Niether,Andrea Sinn, and Maximilian Strnad

2/2010From Kristallnacht to November Pogrom: Transformations inCommemorating 9 November 1938 – Norbert Frei,Anne Giebel, Constantin Goschler, Monika Halbinger,Harald Schmid, and Alan E. Steinweis

1/2011Perceptions of Self and Other: Scholarship on Ancient andMedieval Judaism – Ismar Schorsch, Ora Limor undIsrael J. Yuval, Kenneth Stow, Astrid Riedler-Pohlers,and Wiebke Rasumny

2/2011The New Sefarad: Modern Spain and Its Jewish Heritage –David Nirenberg, Michael Studemund-Halévy,Michal Friedman, Stefanie Schüler-Springorum, Anna Menny,Carlos Collado Seidel, and Alejandro Baer

1/2012Jewish Voices in the Discourse of the Sixties –an Elmau Symposium – Awi Blumenfeld, Michael Brenner,Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Dan Diner, Norbert Frei,Jürgen Habermas, and Rachel Salamander

2/2012Munich – City of Art? Interrupted Lives –Willibald Sauerländer, Sandra Steinleitner, Olena Balun,Anna Messner, Winfried Nerdinger, Eva-Maria Troelenberg,Annette Hagedorn, Heidi Thiede, and Lisa Christina Kolb